1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Fourteen

by Kristen Ashley

  He hadn’t left the drunken, stripping floozy who’d passed out in his Mercedes in her bed and taken off.

  Like a gentleman, when she wasn’t in the throes of a trauma, he’d slept on the couch.

  I looked at him, his long body stretched out amongst the daisies, asleep, but having stayed close so he could make sure I was safe, safe from anything, even nightmares, and I made a noise in the back of my throat I couldn’t control.

  When I did, I watched his body twitch then he came up on his forearms and his sleepy blue eyes turned my way.

  He looked ready to move further but he caught himself when he saw me.

  I stared into his eyes, knowing I probably made noise getting up, doing my thing in the bathroom, getting dressed.

  But it was my quiet sob that had woken him.

  Marcus Sloan.

  God, he killed me.

  I leaned my shoulder against the doorjamb, drawing in breath through my nose, controlling the tears with some effort, taking more time to swallow them back.

  After another breath, watching him watching me unmoving, I spoke.

  “You know what got me through?”

  “Baby,” he whispered but still didn’t move. He just lay there on his stomach, up on his forearms, his head turned to me, his eyes glued to me, just like he knew that’s what I needed him to do.

  Just that. Stay on my couch and let me say what I needed to say.

  “Thought I was nothing,” I shared softly.

  He pushed up, the muscles in his biceps bulging, threw off the blanket, and turned to sit on his ass.

  He hadn’t taken off his trousers.

  That couldn’t be a comfortable way to sleep.

  But a gentleman in a lady’s home got as comfortable as he could get, but unless he was invited to do it, he didn’t take off his trousers.

  Lord.

  Marcus Sloan.

  “Proved it to me, that guy,” I told him. “Raping me. The world had been givin’ me signs since I was born. But he proved it to me.”

  “I need you to come here,” Marcus requested gently.

  I ignored him and kept going.

  “Told myself that. Was certain of it, at first. The thing was, if I was nothing, why was someone sending me daisies?”

  That cut it for him.

  He started to push up.

  Quickly, I asked, “Please. Don’t. Please let me finish.”

  He settled, gaze locked to me, and he showed me with his expression that he didn’t like it but he kept his place.

  For me.

  “So pretty,” I whispered. “So bright and happy. They were everywhere. I wanted to think dark thoughts. I wanted to cut myself down. I just couldn’t keep it up. And it wasn’t Miss Annamae this time who helped me see what it was important to see.”

  “Darling—”

  I’d beat them away but they came right back and I knew it when the bead of cold wet slid down my cheek.

  “It was you,” I finished.

  “Daisy, I need to come to you.”

  No he didn’t.

  I needed to go to him.

  And that was what I did, scared—no, terrified.

  But slowly, one foot in front of the other, I did it, and he watched me every step of the way.

  And when I got just a little bit close, he bent way forward. His long arms coming right out, his fingers grasped me at my hips and pulled me into his lap.

  Then he kissed me.

  It was soft and it was sweet.

  But it was more.

  The tip of his tongue touched my lips and I instantly let him inside. He swept in, his arms around me closing tighter. He twisted at his waist, leaned into me, and I felt my back hit the couch, the warmth of his broad chest pressing to mine, his hand diving in my curls and closing around my scalp.

  I had my arms around his shoulders, one hand curved tight around the back of his neck, and I kissed him back trying to come even a little bit close to giving him back all he’d given me.

  Daisies.

  Lobster.

  Laughter.

  Patience.

  Understanding.

  Everything.

  I pressed my breasts into his chest.

  He groaned, then growled into my mouth, but I felt it in my coochie, and he took the kiss deeper. One of his arms curving down, his hand gliding down my side, his trajectory I knew to my ass.

  But before he got there, that arm locked tight around my waist, his lips slid from mine to my neck and he kissed me there.

  Then he held me that way, his warm breath coming fast against my neck, all the other warmth of his hard body pressed to me.

  I didn’t get it.

  So I called, “Marcus?”

  “Taking this slow,” he answered a question I didn’t exactly ask and he sounded like it was the last thing he wanted to do, not just saying it, doing what he said.

  That was sweet. I was sure I needed it.

  Still.

  “You coulda maybe taken second base,” I shared.

  His head came up, his twinkling eyes caught mine, and he was smiling.

  “Maybe next time.”

  “Look forward to that,” I mumbled.

  “Now I’m going to make you breakfast.”

  I frowned and asked, “Whose apartment is this?”

  “Yours,” he answered, still smiling.

  “So rules are, I have a drama, the morning after, you can make me breakfast. I don’t have a drama, which, honey bunches of oats, I’m hopin’ to be drama-free for a good long while, I make breakfast. Comprende?”

  I knew what I was saying.

  But more, he knew it.

  And he liked it.

  A whole lot.

  “Deal,” he replied, eyes still twinkling.

  “Do you like pancakes?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  I squinted at him. “Got a load of your six-pack, sugar.”

  And I had. His chest and stomach were better than his back. Well, not really, it was just that I didn’t mind losing the sight of his back if I had his chest and abs to look at. Or his shoulders. Or his face.

  “Daisy.”

  On my name, he sounded like he was laughing.

  I stopped thinking about his chest (and other things) and focused on him.

  Yep.

  Laughing.

  Pull yourself together, girl!

  “Sorry,” I muttered then rallied. “So, if I make you pancakes, will your body rebel and I’ll have to take you to the hospital? Or will you have to eat nothing but celery for two weeks to make up for it?”

  “I cooked in your kitchen, honey,” he reminded me. “I didn’t notice many healthy options.”

  “I’m Southern. If it isn’t fried, griddled, or grilled, it’s grilled, griddled, or fried. We might get up to some boilin’, but only if it’s crawfish, lobster, or shrimp, and I don’t have none of that.” I hesitated, making a mental grocery list before I concluded, “Right now.”

  “I’m thinking I’ll have to add another hour to my workout every day if you’re doing the cooking.”

  My eyes got big.

  “You work out every day?”

  His body shook against mine with his laughter and his word shook with it too, “Yes.”

  “That explains it,” I muttered.

  “Daisy?”

  I focused again on him and not the delicious vision of him working out.

  “Yeah?”

  “You have a beautiful body, too.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, sugar, that’s sweet.”

  “You’re welcome, darling,” he said warmly. “But what I’m saying is, you have that body. You also have three packets of bacon, and only because I cooked up the last of the opened one yesterday, so before, you had three and a half.”

  “This is true,” I confirmed, like having four packets of bacon (and I made another mental note for my grocery list that I was one down) was the most natural thing in the world.

  B
ecause it was.

  “And you don’t work out?” he asked then added with his arms giving me a squeeze, “Every day?”

  “I strip. Then I practice strippin’. Then I help the other girls practice strippin’, doin’ it by showin’ them some good moves.” I paused before I finished, “And I power walk.”

  “Ah,” he murmured.

  “I also have to cart around these bazungas,” I shared, deciding not to take my arm from around him (because I liked my arms around him) in order to gesture to said bazungas he couldn’t exactly miss since he was lying on them. “And that burns some calories, believe you me.”

  He was still murmuring, and his eyes were still twinkling, when he said, “I bet.”

  It was then I decided to remove an arm from around him but only so I could put a hand to his jaw and rub my thumb over the dark stubble on his cheek.

  It rasped against the pad of my thumb and felt nice.

  Real nice.

  And I watched the twinkle in his eye disappear but only so he could replace it with something I liked just as much.

  I kept doing this with my thumb as I said softly, “I need some aspirin, baby. I got me a little hangover from last night and it’s all good with you lookin’ hot on my couch and bein’ hot while kissin’ me then bein’ sweet while talkin’ about pancakes. But that’s settin’ in again so I gotta get on doin’ something about it and then feedin’ my hot guy.”

  “You have an extra toothbrush?”

  My eyes rolled back to study my bangs for a second as I mentally inventoried my bathroom drawers then I looked at him again and said, “Yeah.”

  “You get me that. I’ll get you the water and aspirin. Then you can start cooking.”

  I grinned at him.

  “Deal.”

  * * * *

  We were sitting at my dinette and I was shoveling in pancakes while envisioning the dining room table I was going to buy when I got my new place (this in an effort not to envision what Marcus’s shoulders looked like under the shirt he’d put back on—he was fine in that shirt—he was finer out of it).

  Marcus was shoveling in pancakes too. Though, he was classier about it.

  “How’d you get all classy?” I asked.

  “Sorry?” he asked back.

  I circled my fork with its hunk of pancakes dripping syrup at him.

  “You said you didn’t have much growin’ up. Your daddy played the ponies. Your sister was a stripper. But you look and act like a Kennedy, except hotter, and without forgettin’ how to pronounce your R’s.”

  “Got a job at a country club to help my sister out when I was fourteen,” he shared.

  I nodded.

  “Some of the adults were all right. The rest acted like I didn’t exist. The kids were jackasses.”

  “I’ve got no doubt,” I murmured, watching him like a hawk.

  “I belong to that country club now.”

  His words socked me right in the chest in a very happy way.

  Real slow, I felt a smile spread on my face.

  “You knew what you wanted, you made it happen.”

  He gave one nod. “Exactly.”

  I’d made a decision. I was scared to death of it. But I’d made it and I’d shared it with Marcus.

  It was time to get to the important stuff.

  “You want babies, sugar?” I asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding after I asked my question and before I asked another one.

  “How many?”

  “As many as my wife will let me make.”

  Excellent answer.

  “Do you want them, Daisy?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “As many as my man will let me make.”

  We sat there, not eating, just staring at each other.

  I broke the silence by giving him the honesty.

  “Just sayin’, darlin’, this takin’ it slow is not real easy.”

  His eyes heated but his face went soft.

  “Let me take care of you,” he whispered.

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t keep up. He gave me a lot of it.

  But in that moment, those words felt like the sweetest Marcus had ever given to me.

  I pressed my lips together, rolled them, and nodded.

  “I like it that you don’t want slow but you need it, baby,” he went on.

  He was probably right about that, even if after that kiss on my couch that morning, I wanted him to be wrong.

  I didn’t offer him these thoughts.

  I just kept nodding.

  “Dinner tonight, my house,” he decreed. His lips curled up slightly. “Since it’s my house, I’m cooking for you, honey.” The lip curl went away as his tone grew firm. “And I want you to bring a bag but I’m sleeping in the guest room and you’re not.”

  What could I do?

  I’d made a decision. And Marcus knew that decision.

  And on the other point, it was his house. Maybe one day (I hoped, please God, did I hope) I could horn in and do what a good woman should do for her man, that being the cooking (and I didn’t think on what Marcus and his six-pack had in his fridge—I was Southern, I could eat a strawberry if it was on the bottom of a champagne glass and some Brussels sprouts if they were coated in bacon grease, but that’s about as far as it went).

  But right then, I had one choice.

  And for once in my life, it was a good choice.

  So I again nodded.

  “Eat,” he ordered. “I need to get to work.”

  I just kept nodding.

  He gave me a sweet smile.

  And then we both ate.

  Chapter Eight

  Just a Dream

  Daisy

  That evening, I sat next to Marcus in the back of his big limousine, Ronald driving (again wearing sunglasses, seriously, and night had fallen and everything!), Brady sitting next to him in the front, Marcus sitting next to me with his fingers fiddling with mine against his thigh.

  He was on his phone.

  It had been a surprise when Brady, not Marcus, had collected me at my door, taking my bag and also putting his hand to the small of my back as he escorted me to the car.

  When Brady opened the door to let me in, Marcus was on the phone but his gaze was on me.

  However, the instant I sat my ass next to him, he muttered into his cell, “I need a moment.”

  He didn’t wait for whoever he was talking to to give him that moment.

  He put his hand over the bottom half of his phone, leaned into me, brushed my lips with his, then slanted his head and kissed my neck.

  He pulled away and said, “I’m sorry, honey. This is important. I’ll try not to let it take too long.”

  I’d just had my man’s man collect me from my door, carry my bag, guide me chivalrously to a limousine in the back of which was my man.

  He could be on the phone for an hour, two. With all that and the way he greeted me and apologized, I didn’t give a shit.

  To communicate this, I smiled at him, nodded, settled my ass into the leather and it was then he took my hand, pulled it to his thigh, and started fiddling with my fingers.

  We drove from my building that was on the east side of Cherry Creek past Colorado Boulevard, into downtown.

  It took Marcus all that time to wind down his phone call and he only flipped his cell shut when Ronald hit the indicator and made a turn into underground parking.

  “Sorry, darling,” Marcus murmured and I turned my head to him. “How was your day?”

  “I watched Gone with the Wind, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Fried Green Tomatoes, so I’m topped up in Southern diva goodness.”

  He grinned. “Does that ever run low?”

  I shook my head (and hair—I’d gone with my Farrah Fawcett flips-waves-and-curls-run-amuck-except-bigger look), but said, “I’m not takin’ any chances.”

  His grin became a smile. He tugged on my hand and pul
led me in so he could touch his lips to my forehead.

  About that time, Ronald pulled into a spot and stopped, so I tore my eyes from Marcus’s retreating lips and looked out the windshield.

  There was a big sign on the concrete wall in front of the spot that said, RESERVED. PENTHOUSE.

  Uh.

  Penthouse?

  The door at my side opened and Marcus let my hand go to put his to my hip and give it a light shove, encouraging in a murmur, “Let’s get you fed, baby.”

  I slid out.

  That was when I saw in front of the three spots next to the limousine, one that held Marcus’s Mercedes, one that held a black Escalade, and since the Escalade was so big I didn’t see what the other one held, but I did see the same sign on the wall that was in front of the limo and the other spots.

  Four parking spaces.

  All his.

  My Lord.

  Marcus took my hand and led me to the elevator that was right next to the parking spot the limo was in.

  But of course the owner of the penthouse would have all the best spots.

  The elevator came. We got in. Brady got in with us. Ronald and his sunglasses did too.

  And it was Ronald that tapped in a code on the elevator pad then hit the button that had the letters PH.

  They stood in front of us.

  We stood at the back.

  I looked up at Marcus. “You said you had a condo.”

  He looked down at me. “I do.”

  “A condo penthouse?”

  He grinned again and squeezed my hand.

  “Lobster, limos, and penthouses. You’re somethin’, sugar,” I muttered.

  “I’ll take that as good,” he replied.

  I looked to the backs of the boys in front of me, stating, “Seein’ as that’s how I meant it, you go right ahead.”

  At that, he let my hand go but only so he could curve his arm around my waist and curl me so my front was pressed to his side.

  I looked up at him again. “This is a long ride, darlin’. Your penthouse on the moon?”

  With that, he burst out laughing.

  And I loved every second of it, hearing it and watching it.

  Unfortunately, in the middle of it, the elevator doors opened.