I fisted the sheets as he rocked into me, over and over again. The pace was steady and strong and when his fingers moved to the front of me, massaging and rubbing my clit, I was certain my brain exploded out of my ears at the same time I screamed from my orgasm.
“So sexy,” he growled right before he released himself into me. He collapsed onto my back, pushing me further into the mattress, where we laid for several minutes, catching our breaths.
“I want to go out today,” Marcus finally said, slowly rolling off me and ridding himself of the condom.
As fast as I could, which was incredibly slow since I was still in what was becoming a common post-orgasm haze, I turned to face him. He watched me carefully.
“We can’t.”
He laughed once and brushed my hair off my cheek so he could see me. “It’s a Saturday in a city of almost three million people. I doubt anyone will see us together. Not anyone who’d know I’m Logan’s dad, anyway.”
I scowled at him and sat straight up. A strange, uncomfortable feeling slithered up my spine. “You said we didn’t have to go out….when this started, you told me I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding out.”
Why was this so upsetting to me? Realistically, Marcus was probably right. None of our friends knew we were dating. We’d been able to keep it from Emma and Logan. No one had seen us together.
“Shit, Tabby,” Marcus groaned, clearly frustrated. He pushed his blond hair off his face with one hand and scratched his unshaven and prickly cheek. “I just wanted to take you to lunch. In public. It can’t be that big of a deal.”
“It is,” I said quickly. I stood up and wrapped his sheet around me. Why? Why was I so upset about this? It was lunch, and why was I suddenly so uncomfortable around Marcus that I felt the need to cover my body? It didn’t make sense that I felt the need to protect myself. “I’m going to go. I have laundry and cleaning to do.”
“Laundry?” One of his eyebrows rose and he took a step in my direction. “You’re leaving me for laundry.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Not all of us can afford laundry services and housecleaners.”
“Hey,” Marcus said, reaching for me and turning me around by my shoulder. “What is going on with you? It was just lunch, just an idea, and you’re freaking out like I just asked you to marry me or something.”
“Marry you?” I choked.
Marcus’s hands flew back to his head. “What in the hell just happened here? How did we get from that,” he waved his hand toward the bed and then between the two of us, “to this.”
I took a deep breath and pulled the sheet tighter around me. “You promised me no one would know. That we wouldn’t have anyone find out, that we could always stay in. You’re changing the rules, Marcus.” And then it all hit me because I knew whatever I was feeling had absolutely nothing to do with Marcus, but had everything to do with “Fucking Chuck Banter.”
“Who?” Marcus growled, and his eyes narrowed in a possessive gleam. He squeezed my shoulder with his hand until I shook him off.
I exhaled a deep breath, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. “My ex. God, I’m sorry, Marcus. This has nothing to do with you, and I just freaked out. I know I did.” I just…couldn’t explain why. “Chuck, damn him, always so fucking controlling and bossy and even running and leaving me again, half way around the freaking world, he’s still controlling my stupid damn life with a guy that’s freaking incredible and amazing and I’m still letting that no good –”
“Tabby?”
Marcus’s voice cut through my rambling. And oh my gosh, I was just rambling all of that out loud. Mortifying. I felt my cheeks explode with heat.
I squished my nose up. “I just said all that loud, huh?”
“Yeah,” he answered, drawing the word out to at least three syllables. “Want to try re-explaining it so it makes sense?”
“Not really,” I told him, walking into the bathroom and speaking louder so he could hear me from the bedroom. “Chuck’s my ex. And he’s stupid and everything we did always had to be done when he wanted it and how he wanted it. He wasn’t even good at any of it.” At least he certainly wasn’t good at anything he tried in bed. Not the way Marcus was.
I caught Marcus’s reflection in his bathroom mirror just as I was finishing getting dressed. “How about lunch in Evanston?”
One eyebrow rose again. “You sure?”
“Yup. It’s not the city proper, but it’s probably the best I can do right now.” And it got us away from talking about Chuck.
“And you’re not going to freak out again? Start talking to yourself out loud or getting irrationally upset about an innocent question?
I pressed my lips together, pretending to think. “I’m not sure I can make those promises based on how the morning has gone.”
Marcus laughed softly and raised his hands, silently giving up. “All right then. Lunch in the suburbs. Sounds fun.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed to myself as he walked away from me. And I admired his tight ass in a pair of perfectly fitted dark blue denim jeans while he did it.
~*~*~*~
“That tapas restaurant was amazing,” I groaned, still rubbing my bloated stomach from the food we’d consumed.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a woman eat so much.”
“Shut up,” I told Marcus, smacking him on the chest with the back of my hand. It was cold as we walked along the sidewalk shops in Evanston, but the sun was out so even the cold weather was bearable. We kept laughing and talking while we walked, Marcus held my hand like I was his girlfriend and I acted like I wasn’t paranoid someone was going to run in to us. In reality, my eyes were drawn to every window front we passed, and I kept looking behind my shoulder in a nonchalant way to see if we were being followed or spotted. Paranoid? Absolutely.
Necessary? Absolutely. Marcus may have found nothing in my contract that said we weren’t legally breaking my employment rules, but I was still uncertain of what would happen if anyone found out. I loved my job. I needed my job. Teacher’s made crap salaries to begin with, and even with a roommate I was only barely scraping by. Between student loans and the credit card debt Chuck had racked up without my knowledge, I was in debt up to my eyeballs and then some.
“Hello, Miss Malloy.”
Oh, no. Every nerve froze in place. Marcus stopped next to me and glanced at my face. His eyes searched mine for an answer, but my head dropped to the ground.
I unplastered my feet from the sidewalk and turned, slowly, to the slithering, greasy voice behind us and created a hopefully pleasant expression for the Principal of my school.
Shit.
“Hello Jerry, so nice to see you.”
His lips smiled. I think it was supposed to be a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, and it wasn’t pleasing to look at. Jerry Morgenson gave me the creeps on a good day. On that day, with my hand still wrapped in Marcus’s while I watched my employer leer at me on the sidewalk, creepy didn’t begin to describe the way he made me feel. Dirty. That was closer.
“Mr. Whitmore,” he said, and extended his hand toward Marcus. It meant two things and I could tell by the way his eyes danced to mine before returning to Marcus that they weren’t good. One was that he was forcing Marcus to let go of my hand in order to shake his, and two, which was more important, he knew who he was.
“Marcus,” he corrected him. I’d never heard the one word sound so short and clipped before. Jerry didn’t notice Marcus’s annoyed glare, or the way Marcus shifted slightly, putting me behind him.
Jerry let go of Marcus’s hand and rocked on his heels. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
An awkward silence fell on us like a thick blanket. And then Jerry’s grin widened. “Very well, then. You two have a nice day.” He turned to walk away, but not before his eyes made direct contact with mine. Had he punched me in the gut I wouldn’t have felt it more. “I’ll see you Monday, Miss Malloy.”
I think I croaked out
a response before he turned and walked away. Once he was gone, Marcus moved in front of me, bending down a little so he could see me. My nose twitched.
“I still have that laundry to do.”
He examined me. “You’re scared.”
“It’ll be fine,” I lied, turning and starting to head toward the L train stop we had taken into Evanston. Marcus’s black dress shoes clicked on the pavement next to mine.
“You’re running.”
“I’m walking briskly.” I shoved my hands into my coat pockets to give them something to do, and I stared straight ahead.
“That’s not what I meant.” But he said nothing else as we waited for the L. He said nothing when he sat down next to me on the train, and he didn’t say anything once the train arrived at the platform and he followed me down the steps. It wasn’t until we were at the bottom that both of his hands went to my shoulders and he spun me around.
“What?” I clipped out. Of course I was scared. That was the worst possible person to have seen us. Had my boss seen us kissing in the tapas restaurant? Holding hands was clearly bad enough. It made it worse that Jerry was a snake. He was unscrupulous. I had seen him play dirty a dozen times with other teachers and administrators in order to get his way on whatever agenda he felt like pushing. He was a rotten human being and my career was quite possibly in his hands.
“This will not hurt your job,” Marcus finally said after taking a few deep breaths. Whether from the cold or his own anger that was blowing off him in waves, I didn’t know.
I leaned forward and stood on my tip-toes. I stood so close to him our noses were almost touching. And then I hissed, “This could ruin my job, Marcus.” I fell back on my heels. “My god, six weeks of sex. I just might have thrown away my career for sex. Of all the stupid, idiotic things I’ve ever done, this has to top that list.”
“This is more than sex and you know it,” Marcus hissed back at me. And then he almost flattened me to the cement with one of his sexy grins. “And stop the rambling. It’s cute as hell and makes me want to take you back to my apartment and strip you naked.”
I huffed. Annoyed, scared, and turned on. Damn him.
“I’ll make this okay for you, Tabby. I promise I will.” Marcus slid one of his leather gloved hands to the back of my neck and pulled me forward. I resisted for as long as it took me to blink. When my head hit his shoulder, I inhaled deeply. “I won’t let that prick hurt you. You have my word.”
I licked my frozen lips and pulled back. Marcus couldn’t do a thing about my job. I shook my head. “I’m not sure there’s anything you can do about it, Marcus.” I took a step back out of his arms, almost surprised he let me go. “I have to get home now, I’ll call you later?”
I watched him suck in a breath through his front teeth and jam his hands into his pockets. He nodded once. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
His good-bye sounded much more definite than mine, like he knew I wasn’t planning on calling him. I turned and walked away from him, heading down Addison Avenue. I didn’t look back to see if Marcus watched me go. I didn’t need to. I could feel his eyes on me until I turned the corner four blocks west of him.
Chapter Eight
Marcus
I stared at a contract for a hotel McMillan Holdings was purchasing from a competitor in New York for four hours. Work was where I excelled. Law school got me through my break up with Emma and my anger with her for taking my dad’s money to have an abortion. Work got me through my mother’s suicide and revelation of my dad’s philandering ways. Work got me through the days when I re-appeared back in Emma’s life and found out I had a son and my dad was the biggest prick in the world for lying to me and Emma.
Work was not getting me through the memory of watching Tabby walk away from me. Her pained eyes and face full of fear that appeared as soon as we saw the dipshit Principal. Every time I blinked, her pale face and doe-like, scared eyes flashed in front of me. I hadn’t slept in days. The pain in my chest refused to disappear no matter how hard I rubbed it. I couldn’t wrap my head around my intense feelings for Tabby. She was gorgeous and amazing in bed, but I wasn’t thinking about that while I sat at my desk staring over contracts I could prepare in my sleep, yet now unable to think of a single word.
It was her smile. It was the eyes that lit up when she laughed and the little lines that appeared at the edges of her eyes that told me she laughed often. It was the way her fingers could reach over and wipe a trail down my arm, chest, and cheek, or run through my hair. And every single time, it felt like it was the first time I was ever being touched by a woman.
It was her sass. Her humor. Her ability to take blow jobs – shots – without hands and drink down every last drop. It was the purple shade she turned when embarrassed, and the way her cheeks flushed pink after an orgasm. It was the way she always smiled and laughed when talking about her students, as if being a kindergarten teacher was the most amazing profession in the history of professions.
It was simply all of it. Every thought, every moment, spent with Tabby over the last six weeks was firmly ingrained in my memory like it’d been carved in stone.
I loved her. And in the three days since I had let her walk away from me, I hadn’t heard a single word from her. She was gone. And somehow I knew, if I continued to wait for her, I would never see her again.
Which would not do.
“Margaret,” I spoke into the speaker leading out to one of the assistant’s desk. “Will you please call Emma and tell her I’ll pick Logan up from school today?”
“Mr. Whitmore? You’re going to get Logan?”
I scowled into the intercom at her shocked voice. So it wasn’t like me to take a half day off work. This was more important.
Tabby was more important.
After Logan, she was everything. I would do anything for her. And the last thing I was going to let her do was stay working for that leering greasy principal, Mr. Morgenson.
“Phone call, Margaret.”
“As you wish,” she sighed through the phone. I made a mental note to find a secretary in the near future who wasn’t either calcifying at the desk in our lobby or reciting The Princess Bride lines every time she spoke.
~*~*~*~
My pulse thumped wildly in my chest when I pulled into Logan’s school parking lot thirty minutes before school ended for the day. I could see my future, see Tabby with me and Logan on pizza and game nights, laughing with us, curled up next to me on my couch while I swung an arm around her shoulder and laughed as Logan went ballistic over his Lego people video games. It was just out of my grasp. I felt if I reached far enough, I could grab it. I could grab Tabby and plant her in my apartment and never let her leave. If that happened, the pain in my chest might finally settle.
Seeing the future I wanted, I climbed out of my Lexus SUV and rubbed my clammy palms together. I was sweating more than I did when I asked Sally Decker to the eighth grade Valentine’s Day dance. I stood outside Logan’s school, waiting for the secretary to buzz me into the secured building before heading straight for the front office.
“I’m here to see Jerry Morgenson,” I told the older woman politely.
“I’m sorry, he’s gone for the day.” Her head tilted to the side and she smiled. I noticed a slight gap in her teeth before she continued. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“No,” I told her, pulling the visitor sign-in sheet in front of me and scribbling my information down. I smacked a white sticker on my chest that had ‘visitor’ printed in bold block letters on it. “I’m here to pick up my son, Logan, from Miss Malloy’s class.”
“Oh,” she said, and looked visibly nervous. Or terrified. Perhaps it was the angry scowl etched on my face that scared her. “Miss Malloy is no longer a teacher here. Her position was terminated Monday, effective immediately. We sent notes home with the students…”
I was out the door while she was still talking. This was bad. Fucking horrible. How had I screwed this up for Tabby? No wonder
why I hadn’t heard from her. She probably never wanted to see me again. Halfway down the hall to Logan’s classroom, I dialed Emma on my phone and growled into the speaker as soon as I heard her voice.
“What are you doing with Logan?” she asked, her voice a mixture of shock and confusion.
“Why didn’t you tell me Tabby wasn’t his teacher anymore?” I snapped back.
“I….Tabby…” she gasped into the phone. If I was in the room, I would see her playing with her blonde hair. I knew the instant her smirk appeared. “Tell me you didn’t screw the teacher, Marcus.”
Yes, of course I did! “Shit,” I grumbled into the phone, and pushed my hair back with my free hand. I fell against a wall of lockers outside Logan’s classroom. “Fuck Emma, I totally messed this up.”
She laughed. I was freaking out, and Emma, the mother of my child, had the audacity to laugh – loudly - at me.
“You’re not helping,” I growled, and closed my eyes. Now what in the hell was I supposed to do?
“I’m sorry, Marcus. I’m totally pissed at you for this. Logan loves Miss Malloy and he’s been talking all week long about the smelly old teacher he has now. And it’s all your fault, isn’t it?”
“Probably, I just….haven’t met anyone like her.” I smacked my hand against my head as soon as I said that. I was talking to my ex-girlfriend, the woman I had loved for years, for crying out loud. I expected awkward silence. I didn’t get it. Of course I wouldn’t. Not from Emma. Her heart is four sizes larger than any other person I had met in my life.
“You really like her.” A statement, not a question.
“I love her, Emma. I know it’s…shit, I know it’s quick. I know we barely know each other -”
“I get it,” she said softly. I could imagine her slightly crooked smile through the phone. “Fix it.”
I nodded. “I will. I’ll get Logan to you soon.”
Forbidden Fruit: Volume 1 Page 14
