by Marci Bolden
“Hey,” he said gently. “Just because you didn’t bake cookies and run the PTA doesn’t make you any less maternal. Mallory never had to ask you to be there for her, Annie. You are now, and you always have been with her. Every step of the way.”
“But I keep things in. I hide myself. I get moody when things get too real. You deserve better. You deserve someone who can be warm and open.”
He scooted closer, so close she had to lift her bent leg off the cushion to make room for him. Cupping the back of her head, he met her gaze. “If I wanted sweet and sugary, I would be with someone like Donna or Dianna.”
“So you want someone bitter?”
He grinned. “I prefer tart with just enough bite to let me know I’m alive.”
“How long before you realize tart is just a nice word for unpleasant?”
“Oh, honey, I already know you’re unpleasant. I just don’t mind as much as you seem to think I should. I don’t want you to change. I don’t want you to try to be something you’re not or something you think I want, because the only thing I want is you.”
“You can find someone better than me,” she whispered.
“I don’t want someone better than you,” he said just as quietly.
“And if you change your mind?”
“Annie, I can sit here and make you heartfelt promises all night long with every intention of living up to them, but we both know life happens. Paths change. People change. But right now, you are the only tart for me.”
She smiled softly, and he put his hand to her face.
“Just give us a chance,” he said. “Give me a chance, a real chance. I can’t promise you forever, but I can promise you the near future. And it will be amazing if you’ll just let it be. Maybe it isn’t the path you wanted when you were a kid, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right path for you to take now.”
She put her fingertips to his cheek as she looked into his eyes. Heat shot down her fingers and right through the wall of ice she tried to keep around her heart. Everything inside her melted as she pressed her lips to his.
The last time they’d kissed, the exchange exploded from tentative to intense in just a few seconds, and this was no different.
One moment her lips were just meeting his, the next his hands were digging into her hair as he pulled her closer. The moment after that, she turned as he simultaneously lifted her. Straddling his hips, she sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck as his arm slid around her waist. His tongue pressed at her lips, and she parted them to accept him. She moaned as he pulled her even closer—so close she could feel his body responding to their passionate kiss. The thin material of their respective pajama pants did little to hide his erection or her heat.
She was about as far from wanton as a woman could get, but instinct took over and she ground her body against his, desperate to feel every part of him. Threading her fingers into his hair, she kissed him as he pressed up to meet her.
Her determination to remain platonic until he was officially no longer her employee was forgotten.
She moaned deep in her throat and broke away from his mouth to take a breath. Apparently he had gills, because he went straight for her neck, delving in with an open mouth and gently nipping the skin without taking the time to catch his breath. She moaned again. For some reason, moaning and grinding were the only responses she could make. They seemed to be sufficient, because after thoroughly attacking her neck, Marcus shifted their bodies until she was on her back on the sofa. She found his mouth with hers again and arched up to meet his roaming hands.
His palm covered her breast, his tongue moved over hers, and he pressed the most intimate parts of their bodies together. If they were naked, there would be no stopping him from taking her right there on the couch of her brother’s vacation home. The thought gave her pause. When he lowered his hand and skimmed the hem of her shirt, she grabbed his wrist.
Fear struck her. Everything was suddenly very real. “Marcus,” she panted. “I’m sorry. I—we can’t do this. We can’t. I’m sorry.”
He moved from between her legs and stretched out beside her. “No. I got carried away.”
“Me too.”
He laughed quietly. “I’ve just wanted this for so long.”
“I know.” She took a breath. She had wanted this, too. She could no longer deny that. Even now, her body was demanding release that only making love to Marcus could give. Part of her wanted to roll on top of him and finish what she’d just stopped. But she didn’t. She lay there silently, feeling him next to her, wondering why the hell she couldn’t just take what she damn well knew she wanted.
He leaned up onto his elbow and brushed her hair behind her ear before kissing her. “I don’t want to bid you a good night, but if I don’t, I’m probably going to turn into a teenage boy and beg you to let me at least make it to third base.”
She giggled and bit her lip. “I’d hate to see you act any more immaturely than you already do.”
“I’d be offended by that if I could think about anything other than the fact that I just squeezed your boob.”
Her giggle turned into an outright laugh.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Really.”
Rolling onto her, he put a soft kiss on her lips. “I love you, Annie.”
She sighed. “I love you.”
“Get some sleep.”
She nodded, and he kissed her one more time before pushing himself up and disappearing into the darkness.
Chapter Five
“What’d you think?” Marcus asked as he and Annie left the restaurant he’d chosen for lunch.
She made a face. “I think Greek isn’t for me.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged her closer to him. She started toward his car, but he pulled her farther along the sidewalk. She gave him a quizzical look, and he nodded toward the quaint downtown.
“This is my first time visiting the lake house. Let’s explore the town. Unless you’re in a hurry to get home and sit alone.”
She fell in step with him. Even though it was still off-season, the sidewalks were crowded with kids eating oversized cookies and men and women carrying disposable coffee cups. They wandered into a small shop, looked over souvenirs they had no intention of buying, and then followed the sticky lead of other tourists and bought cookies and coffee.
Annie blew into her latte. “What was your path?”
He looked at her, pausing just a moment before his chocolate-chip cookie touched his lips. “What?”
“Last night.” Her face turned red, and she glanced away as if looking at something to her left. “I told you my path—white picket fence and all that. What was your path?”
He stuttered for a moment. It was not often—if ever—that Annie instigated real, deep conversation. She usually skimmed the surface, making him dig if he wanted any actual insight into her. This was not the norm, and it took a moment for him to catch up.
“I was going to be a teacher.”
“A teacher?”
“Yeah. I thought I’d change the world, you know. I’d reach the unreachable. Break the unbreakable. I’d be the teacher all the kids looked back on and said, ‘That’s the guy who finally got through to me.’”
She chuckled. “You still have that determination. Only now you use it on me.”
He smiled. “I try. You’ve been a pretty tough case.”
“So what happened? How did you get from teacher to real estate agent?”
“I started school. I hated it. I hated everything about it, which is kind of ironic, don’t you think? I wanted to teach but hated the process of learning to teach. I just wanted to be out there. You know, in the world. So I switched majors. Thought I’d be a historian. Then I thought I’d be an architect. Then I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I just dropped out altogether.”
“Why didn’t you ever get married and have a famil
y and white fences and all that?”
“After dropping out of college, I was just a bit lost, I guess. I had jobs here and there, and then I decided to travel. I lived in London for a few years. Did you know that?”
“No,” she said, clearly surprised. “Why’d you leave?”
“I met this lovely girl named Isabel. Thought I loved her. Thought we’d get married someday. She met a man named Thomas. Married him instead. I came home with my tail between my legs and my heart in a thousand pieces.”
Annie gave him a sad smile. “Aw. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t meant to be. I hated London. It was crowded and damp. Anyway, after I finally recovered from that betrayal, I met Charlene. A Southern belle almost as saucy as you but not nearly as beautiful and charming. One day, after about four years of dealing with her bad attitude, she said the worst thing a woman can ever say to a man.”
Annie gasped dramatically. “She questioned your manhood.”
“No. She said ‘marry me or leave me.’ I chose the latter.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, Marcus, you really do have terrible taste in women.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I kind of like you. Most days.”
She nudged him in his side with her elbow. “Which only proves my point. So those horrid women turned you against marriage?”
“No, not completely. I was just waiting for the right tart to come along.”
She giggled as she shook her head, but then she grew serious as she looked around them.
“After you went to bed last night, I still couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t turn my brain off. All my life, I’ve treated change as just something to get through, one more challenge to tackle and overcome. My daughter is grown now, Marcus. My brothers haven’t needed me to take care of them for years. My job with them is done. And here I am desperately clinging to a role they don’t need me to play anymore. I know,” she said before he could speak, “Mom and big sister are always needed, but not like when they couldn’t fend for themselves. Not like when they were kids.” She sipped her drink. And then she sighed and looked at him. “Maybe I’m not so far off my path as I thought I was. I own a business. I own a home. I have an incredible daughter. The only thing missing…is you.”
His heart lifted. “I’m right here.”
“And you’ve been incredibly patient with me, Marcus. I know I’m not the easiest person to love.”
“Don’t put yourself down.”
“The truth isn’t a put-down. I’m crass. I’m temperamental. I’m stubborn. And…I’m terrified of…”
“Being abandoned.”
“It’s much easier to be alone than to be rejected by someone you care about.”
He couldn’t see through her sunglasses, but he suspected there were tears in her eyes by the way her lip quivered as she turned away.
“If I were brave enough to be honest, with you and myself, the truth is that I don’t want to be alone anymore. I thought what we had would be enough. You know, office banter and non-obligatory dinner a couple times a week was wonderful. For a while. Then it wasn’t enough, for either of us. I knew that, I knew you were feeling this just as strongly as I was and we had to either move forward or stop. I just kept ignoring that like I ignore everything that makes me uncomfortable. But the truth is, I do want what Paul and Matt have.” She took a deep breath. “I want that with you, but every time I look over the edge, I get terrified. I just can’t make myself jump.”
Marcus very nearly threw his fist in the air and let out a victory cheer. He’d finally broken through to her. His heart melted as he put his hand to her cheek and she ever so slightly pressed her face into his light touch. “You don’t have to jump, honey. There is no jumping. There’s just that path that we’ve both wanted to take and somehow kept missing. We just have to take it. I wish I could promise you it will be smooth, but it won’t be, Annie. Life never is. There will be ups and downs and twists and turns, but we’re going to be taking them together. That makes it worth the trouble. I’m standing right here waiting. All you have to do is take my hand and take the path with me.”
A slow but brilliant smile spread across her face. She put her hand over his hand and sighed. “Okay. Let’s take it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Sliding his hand to the back of her head, he pulled her to him and kissed her right there on the sidewalk for everyone to see.
And she didn’t even stop him.
Annie hadn’t intended to get home so late, but Marcus had wanted to explore the little lakeside town and then they’d walked along the beach. When it was dinnertime, they tried a lakefront burger joint. She thought the food was much better than the Greek he had picked for lunch, but Marcus passionately disagreed. The debate took up quite a bit of their drive home, but that eventually turned to talk about Mallory and figuring out what to do with her things. She’d be leaving in a week, and as far as Marcus and Annie could tell, she hadn’t put much thought in what to do with the things she wasn’t taking to California.
Annie could have a cleaner in and be ready to rent the house in no time, unless the closets were filled with Mallory’s junk. Part of Annie suspected one of her guest rooms—Mallory’s old bedroom—was about to turn into a storage unit.
As Marcus took the exit off the highway for Stonehill, Annie rested her head on the seat and watched him. She’d had an amazing weekend. And not just because Paul had married a woman who deserved him and all he would give to her. She’d finally let go of her fears and accepted that she and Marcus could give this thing between them a go. She felt a strange sense of freedom that she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. She suspected if she analyzed it too much, she’d realize he was right—she was actually happy.
He grinned after a moment of her scrutiny. “What are you thinking about, Ms. O’Connell?”
“I was just thinking that I am very lucky to have you. I love you.”
“I love you.”
She held her breath for a moment. “Would you be opposed to, um…”
“What?”
“Staying with me tonight?” she asked quietly. Maybe if he didn’t want to, he would pretend he hadn’t heard her.
Instead, his smile widened. “Oh, let me think about that.”
“I don’t know what I’m asking exactly. Maybe just wine and conversation.” She ran her hand over the back of his neck. “I can’t promise more, but I…I’m not ready for you to go home yet.”
“I would never expect you to promise me anything, Annie.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Although I’ll have to get up early and get home for clothes. My boss will turn into a bear if I’m late.”
“Good thing you’ve only got to work with her for one more week.”
“It’s a damn good thing.”
He kissed her hand one more time before pressing it over his heart. She couldn’t help but smile.
A few minutes later, he pulled into her driveway and got their bags from the trunk as she unlocked the door. Walking into her home somehow felt different with Marcus behind her. She held the door and let him enter before locking it behind him. She led him to the bedroom, and tension lingered in the air as he put the bags at the foot of her bed.
Annie glanced at the clock. It was just after nine thirty. “Wine?”
He nodded and followed her to the kitchen. He knew his way around well enough that he grabbed two glasses while she selected a bottle. He stood next to her as she poured. She set the bottle aside and handed him a glass. He toasted her before drinking.
“Much better than the gas-station wine I brought to the office last week.”
She smiled at the memory. “Very much so. Are you hungry or…”
He shook his head.
She took another drink from her wine—a large swallow rather than a subtle sip—and sighed heavily. She felt as though a big neon sign was flashing S-E-X in the room.
“This is awkwar
d, isn’t it?” Annie asked.
“Not too much.”
“Liar.” She lowered her face and drew a breath before pushing her wine glass away and taking his from his hand. She set it next to hers and faced him.
“Annie, I don’t—”
“Don’t argue with me right now.”
“But…if—”
She cocked a brow at him, and he stopped talking. “Look, I’m sure you had some great romantic evening playing out in your mind, and I thought I could do that, but…that’s not me.” She frowned. “I don’t really know how to be seductive, so…”
Reaching out, he grabbed her by her hips and pulled her to him. “You silly woman. You seduce me every time you look at me.” Brushing her hair behind her ear, he looked into her eyes as if he could see inside her mind. “I want you, Annie. Just standing here like this, I want you. You don’t have to try. You don’t have to do anything. Having you near me is more temptation than I can take. You have no idea how lucky you are that I can control myself around you.”
She grinned as she slowly slid her hands up his arms and around his neck. “There’s this part of me that would like to see how far I can push my luck. And another part of me that wants to take your self-control and shatter it.”
Slipping his arms around her waist, he pulled her against him. She gasped quietly at the feel of his body responding to her.
He brushed his nose against hers. “I’d take it either way.”
Leaning into him, she kissed him tenderly. Unlike with their other kisses, she held back even when he tried to deepen it.
