“Damn!” she yelled, hopping up and grimacing at the purple stain. “Oh crap. I really hope this isn’t going to stain.” She yanked the sweater off, grateful she was wearing a tank top underneath, and ran to the laundry room.
Neither she nor Marcus had done any laundry since they’d arrived, so there was a healthy pile of clothes to step around. She’d do her share tomorrow, Iris decided as she grabbed the stain stick from the shelf above the washing machine and went to work on the purple stain. The good news was that it didn’t look like it was going to stain. The bad news was that she didn’t currently have any other sweaters to wear. She’d worn them all over the last two weeks. She frowned down at the pile of her dirty clothes on the floor of the laundry room and tossed them quickly into the washer. There was Marcus’s pile of clothes as well.
She supposed there was enough room in the washer for both piles, so she tossed his in there as well. She closed the laundry room door behind her to cut the noise and commanded herself to remember to switch the laundry before she went to bed that night. When she got back to the TV room, she searched around for a blanket or something. It was hot during the day, but the evenings were cool and she wasn’t wearing enough clothes right now.
“What are you looking for?” Marcus asked from his spot on the couch, eyeing her like a hawk eyes a rabbit.
“A blanket or something. That was my last clean sweater. I put in a load of laundry by the way.” Iris lifted up the lid of a chest on one side of the room but found only pillows, no blankets. She frowned and turned, scanning the room.
“Here,” Marcus said sitting up. And then he did something that burned itself into Iris’s brain for all eternity. He did that incredibly hot thing that men sometimes do. When they reach one hand back to yank a shirt off over their heads. He pulled off his worn, blue hoodie and held it out to her.
“Oh, that’s alright,” Iris said, taking a step back like he was holding a rattlesnake out to her.
“Iris, you’re cold and we’re never gonna finish this movie if we keep going on like this.”
Not a mouse, she reminded herself and stepped forward, accepting the hoodie. She yanked it on as she sat back down on the couch and tried her hardest not to swoon. It was warm from his body and smelled like him. Like cologne and just the smallest trace of sweat. She licked her lips and yanked the hood down. She slid her hair out from under the collar of the hoodie and was just gathering it up to put it into a bun when she felt Marcus’s hand on hers, stilling her.
She looked up and he looked down. His head gave the tiniest, most resolute shake. Don’t put your hair up, he was telling her. She listened.
With her hair spilling between them, surrounded in his hoodie and fenced in with his body, Iris turned her eyes back to the screen. His hand instantly went back to her hair and she felt that familiar little tug as he slipped the same lock through his fingers over and over.
The movie went on and Iris tried to relax as she felt his hand move closer to her head. A few minutes passed as he made steady progress up her hair until finally, finally, the pads of his fingers landed at her scalp. Iris was very glad she’d washed her hair that afternoon. She couldn’t help the little groan of satisfaction that made its way out of her. And she couldn’t help but let her eyes fall closed at the feeling of his rough fingertips making gentle circles over her scalp.
She hadn’t been touched in a long time. Over a year. And she hadn’t been touched like this, well, ever. With this level of awareness and care. This faux-casual affection. His touch was a revelation for her and, eyes still closed, she found herself leaning back into it. She was relaxing into him even as the hairs on her arms rose up. She was grateful for the bagginess of the hoodie, so he wouldn’t see the skin all over her body tighten for him.
Marcus kept his breathing even as he traced his fingers through her hair, over her scalp. She was so hot and soft and everything was like silk. She’d yet to open her eyes again and the look on her face, pure, surprised pleasure, was enough to have him shifting his hips against the couch. He fought the need to adjust himself. Because as electrifying as this moment was, he knew that if he made it sexual, it would dry up in a second. He was extremely aware of not pushing her too far. He knew that if he took more than she was ready to give, he’d crush her like a flower not ready to be picked.
So he just kept circling his hand, taking as much pleasure in the innocent motion as she was. But when she hummed again, loose and satisfied, Marcus squeezed his own eyes closed for just a second.
The movie went on, longer than either of them had remembered. About a half an hour from the end, even with the clashing violins and the epic battle against the shark, Iris’s eyes began to get heavy. She yawned, hard, a few times before Marcus gently guided her head to his shoulder. If he were a different man, he might have turned off the movie and insisted she go to bed. But he hadn’t had sex in over a year and he was going to feel the weight of Iris’s head against his shoulder if it was the last thing he did.
And it was everything he wanted it to be. His hand still threaded through her hair, her even breaths washed over his neck as she fell asleep almost instantly. She was curled up toward him, her knees pressing against his thigh and her hands bunched up against his side. He watched the end of the movie but barely saw a scene of it. He was completely concentrated on her soft, comfortable warmth beside him. It wasn’t just that it was the only action he’d gotten in a year, it was that it was the best effing snuggling he’d ever done in his entire life. She was just that sweet.
When the credits rolled, Marcus turned off the movie and paused for a second. He half expected the sudden silence to jolt her awake, but when it didn’t, he shifted, sliding his arms underneath her.
Marcus rose with her and his heart tripped when he realized how light she was. How small. He made his way up the stairs easily, pausing only for a second in the hallway between their two rooms. A year ago, he wouldn’t have paused, he would have taken her right to his room. Actually, a year ago, he wouldn’t have given her his hoodie, he would have taken her tank top off on the couch, licked her head to toe. But it wasn’t a year ago. It was today. And he quietly carried her into her own room, flipping back her covers with one hand and setting her gently in her bed, covering her over.
He closed her door halfway and did the same for his. For a few long minutes he stood in the darkness of his bedroom. One hand lifted of its own accord, to the place where her head had pressed against him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marcus was surprised and a little mystified to find that he was actually a little nervous to see her the next morning. He sat with his steaming cup of coffee as he looked out over the ocean, still navy blue in the early morning light, and wondered when she was going to come downstairs.
He didn’t have to wait long until he heard her soft padding feet come through the kitchen door. His stomach flipped when he realized that she was still wearing his hoodie. At some point she’d changed into pajama shorts and she’d slid big white socks on her feet. He’d never seen her in pajamas before and it was doing something to him.
His eyes followed her as she poured herself a cup of coffee and then leaned against the kitchen counter, facing him. Her cheeks were blushy and her eyes shy as she looked up at him through her lashes.
All they’d done was cuddle a little bit, but he’d be damned if it didn’t feel like the morning after. Marcus wanted to rise up and kiss the breath out of her. He wanted grab her hand and drag her onto his lap where he could nuzzle her neck, maybe slide a hand up under that sweatshirt. He wanted to box her in against that counter and bite her bottom lip.
Instead, he took another sip of his coffee and watched the color rise even higher in her cheeks.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“Very.” She nodded her head and looked like she was about to say something more. But she didn’t. Before he could say anything more himself, she was slipping out of the kitchen and toward the music room.
Marcus
smiled to himself as he heard the faint strains of the piano coming down the hall toward him. A new song, he realized. He bet he knew just what it was about.
***
They watched another movie that night. Her choice this time. She chose an old comedy. Doc Hollywood.
“Ah, I had such a crush on Michael J. Fox,” she sighed as she flicked out another t-shirt and folded it neatly, setting it with the rest of them on the coffee table. She’d forgotten about the laundry until a few minutes ago, and luckily, the dryer had continued tumbling it to keep it from wrinkling.
Marcus didn’t give a shit about wrinkled clothes but he thought he’d lose his mind if he had to keep watching her touch all his clothes. Smoothing out each edge of his shirts, shit, even watching her pair his socks was making him shift on the couch. He hadn’t let himself watch when she’d deftly and neatly folded his boxer briefs, set them to the side.
The second she was done, the very second, he reached forward and tugged her back against him. “Finally,” he couldn’t help but murmur.
Apparently, they were done pretending that it was incidental or circumstantial cuddling. They were both definitely on the same page that the movies were an excuse to touch a little bit at the end of each night.
Iris raised an eyebrow at him as she turned her head. “If you were so anxious, you could have leant a hand.”
“Thank you for doing my laundry,” he grinned down at her, and was quite pleased when a blush bloomed over her cheeks. She must really have a thing for his smile. “But I’m terrible at folding. I would have only made the process even longer.”
He expected her to reply, but she only continued to stare up at him, her face a breath away from his. Danger zone. He was prepared for cuddling. For touching. For small affections. He was not prepared for making out. In his experience, making out led to much darker pursuits. Ones he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t do with her.
He cleared his throat. “You really had a crush on Michael J. Fox?”
She blinked her eyes. “Still do.”
“You’re kidding.” Marcus squinted at the tiny, squirrelly, jumpy actor on the screen and tried to see what she might see. “I don’t get it.”
“Really?” Iris asked, leaning away from him to rest her head on the armrest next to her. Marcus was disappointed for half a second before he just reached down and grabbed her feet, dragging them over his lap.
She wore shorts, as usual, that damn near stopped his heart, as usual, and his hoodie. He kind of couldn’t believe that he got to be up close and personal with these perfect, golden legs of hers. But here they were. Her sweet little feet with those pink, pink nails nestled in his lap. He let one of his big palms rest over her ankle bone for a second before he started tracing a pattern over the top of her foot with his fingertips.
Her breath hitched, unmistakably, before she swallowed hard and kept talking. “He’s just so charming.”
Marcus raised a skeptical eyebrow at the screen where Michael J. Fox had just delivered a pretty smarmy line. “You like this? This smooth talking kind of guy?”
“Mmmm,” Iris weighed her hand back and forth in the air before pillowing it under her head again. “Maybe not so much in practice. But in a movie, sure.”
“Is this what Jet was like?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking. He had a morbid curiosity about the man who’d inspired the entire last album she’d written.
Iris laughed. “God no. Jet’s… not smooth. He’s all bumbling and clumsy and off-kilter. But it’s an act, you know? It took me a long time to realize that he uses it to get women.”
Marcus nodded. “I know that kind of guy. Let me guess, he probably doesn’t have a ton of male friends.”
“How’d you know?” she lifted her head to look at him.
“Other dudes see right through that shit. They’d take one look at that act and know exactly what he was doing. Eli and Jay, my best friends, they’d never let me get away with shit like that.”
Suddenly, Iris sat right up, she slid her feet off Marcus’s lap, but to his delight, she wedged them underneath his thigh, like she wanted to keep touching him. “You miss them. Your best friends.”
Marcus shrugged. “Sure. A little. But we’re all used to me being gone for work for weeks at a time. When I’m home, though, I see them every day pretty much.”
Suddenly a thought occurred to her. Something that pretty much tightened all her blood vessels down to nothing. Iris sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. She didn’t want to ask. But she knew she had to ask. It could change everything and she didn’t want everything to change.
Her eyes dropping to the hands that twisted in her lap, she cleared her throat. “Is there, um, anybody else that you see every day back home?”
It was a roundabout way to ask what they both knew she was asking. He considered giving her a hard time about it, and some part of him wanted to keep his answer vague, evasive, out of self-protection, maybe. But he could see how much courage it had required for her to outright ask him. He could see that his answer was important to her. And as she was someone who’d been cheated on, he could understand her need to be very clear on his status before he continued feeling on her feet and smelling her hair.
“Nah. No girlfriend, if that’s what you mean.” He tried to hold her eyes, but the blue just flicked right away as she blushed even further. “No wife either. For the record.” He smiled and so did she.
“Actually,” he said, completely surprising himself, “There’s not been anybody for over a year.”
He slid down on the couch just a little bit. Her feet were wedged pretty much under his ass now and she wiggled her toes just a little.
“No way,” she frowned, disbelieving as her eyes skated over him. “A guy like you? Not possible.”
He frowned right back, but he was more than a little flattered by her reply. “A guy like me?”
“Yeah,” she waved her hand over him. “A guy that, you know, doesn’t strike out.”
He grinned then and cocked a hand behind his head. The other flashed out and pulled the hair band from the bun on top of her head. Her hair went tumbling down to her shoulders. “I didn’t say I was striking out. It’s been a choice actually.”
She plucked the hair band from his hand and slid it onto her wrist absently. And he liked it. Really liked it that she’d just let him take her hair down without commenting or protesting. she made it feel like he was welcome to do it. Like it was his right and privilege to get to comb his hand through her beautiful blonde strands. The way he was doing right then.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth again. “A choice?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, sighing a little as he came back down to earth. Why the hell had he opened this can of worms with her? Maybe he’d done it intentionally. As a way of reminding himself that she was off limits. For more reasons than just the professional ones. “Things kept getting messed up with women. So I took a step back for a while.”
He frowned at his use of the past tense. He was taking a step back. It hadn’t ended yet.
“Oh,” she said as she messed around with the strings of the hoodie she wore. He thought she wasn’t going to say more for a little while. The movie played on in front of them. “I haven’t been with anybody in over a year either. But it wasn’t really a choice. It’s just that I haven’t met anybody I really liked. My life can be kind of lonely.”
And why the hell had she just told him that? Iris wanted to kick herself for being so candid. The words had just kind of fallen right out.
“Aren’t you living a lot of Owen’s life too? Tours and sold out arenas? Champagne? Maybach to the red carpet and all that?”
Iris laughed at his description. “Hardly. I’ve worked really hard to avoid all that. I work with Owen in the studio. But no. Most of my life is in my little house in Pennsylvania. Three blocks from where I was born. I don’t do much besides write music and stuff around the house.” She frowned when her words hit her. It all sou
nded so boring. So pedestrian. Especially to an FBI agent. “I have a garden that I really like taking care of. And Owen comes to visit me a lot. He’s my best friend, really. And I have a few friends around town that I’ll go out to dinner or the movies with. Sometimes I’ll go to the bar with them. But really, that’s about it.”
“Did you meet Jet at a bar?”
Iris laughed again. “No way! No. I’m so awkward in bars; I could never meet anybody there. No. I met Jet in the studio. A long time ago. He’s Owen’s producer.”
Marcus stiffened. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all. “Still?”
Iris nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t seen him since we finished production on the last album. Which was pretty awkward considering how much of that music is about our break-up.”
“Jesus.” Marcus dragged a hand down over his beard. “And you’re gonna see him again? Whenever you go to record the next album?”
“Yeah,” Iris sunk her face into her hands. “And that’s gonna be even more awkward.” Considering her next album was going to be completely about another man.
“Why?”
Oh. Iris lifted up her face and made herself shrug casually. There was no way she was telling Marcus that every song she’d written in the past two weeks had been about him. “It just will be.”
“Hmm.” He eyed her like he wanted to ask more. But instead he turned his eyes back to the screen. A second later he reached underneath him and pulled her feet back onto his lap. This time, when his hands stroked over her skin, he didn’t stop at her ankle. His hands, firm and sinful, stroked over her entire calf up to the knee, both massaging and stroking.
Iris moaned in appreciation as she sunk back onto the armrest, watching the movie. His hands didn’t stop for the rest of the movie. He thoroughly massaged each of her feet and her lower legs for the next hour. And by the end of it, Iris was a quivering, relaxed mess. A puddle of emotions and humming blood. She had to admit. This crush wasn’t going anywhere. And the attraction was only growing.
Bachelors In Love Page 59
