Turning off the light, Marcus walked back into the room, groaning good-naturedly. “So who was it?” Marcus asked as soon as he got back in bed.
“Who was what?” Lola stretched, knowing that she should go home, but loving how comfy Marcus’s bed was. She knew better than to spend the night, especially in a town this small, but a little catnap never hurt anyone.
“That turned you off of oral sex.”
Wow, she was feeling awake now. “No, Marcus, I’m not going to answer that.”
“Why not?”
“Because questions like that never end well.”
“Come on. You tell me who it was, and I’ll tell you about someone I slept with.’
“Ick, no!” The thought of him in bed, maybe even this bed, with someone else, was repulsive. “Like I want to know about some skanky girl you slept with.”
“Well, since I slept with you, does that officially make you a skanky girl?” he teased.
Rolling her eyes, Lola mockingly frowned. “Great, now I’m a skank. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Come on, tell me, chére.”
“No, you’ll say something mean.”
“No, I won’t.” He couldn’t even say it with a straight face.
“Yes, you will.”
“Come on, Vi, just tell me.”
“Fine,” she sighed dramatically. “It was Michael Ondrey.”
“You slept with Michael.” He grimaced, horrified. “Well, no wonder you didn’t like it, baby. He has teeth like a beaver; he could have messed you up down there. Accidentally bit something off and scarred you for life.”
Lola couldn’t stop laughing. It was a mean yet accurate description of Michael, and leave it to Marcus to take it to the next level. “That’s not nice,” she said between chuckles.
“If we can’t have kids later, I’ll know why,” he teased, pulling her in close to him.
Lola’s laughter stopped as quickly as it had come. We. Have kids. Since when had they become a we, let alone gotten to the part where they were having kids? Tensing up, she tried to pull a bit away, but Marcus held on to her tighter.
“It was just a figure of speech, Lo. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Great, now she felt like a bitch. “I didn’t ...”
“Liar. Don’t think that I don’t know that you’re just using me for my body.”
Marcus was going to try to joke his way out of the situation, and Lola was coward enough to let him.
Chapter Seven
Lola was pulling away from him, and Marcus knew it. Ever since the other night when he had mentioned having kids, she’d closed off a part of herself, refusing to let him in. It was almost like she just wanted sex and nothing more. Normally that would have been cool with him, but he found himself wanting more. More of her time. More of her soul. More of her, period.
It had taken everything out of him not to demand she tell everyone that they were together. Normally he thought he was a pretty easygoing guy, but when it came to Lola everything was ass-backwards. Feelings he didn’t even know he possessed spewed forth, drowning his senses. Jealousy, possessiveness, and a need like he couldn’t describe were becoming as normal to him as breathing. He didn’t like feeling that way, and he damn sure didn’t like acting like a braying jackass.
He’d even taken to calling her every evening, something he had never done with any other woman, but he just didn’t feel as if his day was complete unless he talked to her. And for once, they were actually really talking. He was learning things about Lola, someone he’d known all his life, that he’d never known, and it only made her more special to him, clinching his need to keep her closer to him.
It was getting to the point where he was beginning to get on his own nerves, so he wasn’t surprised to find out that he was getting on Lola’s. But it was beginning to worry him. The last thing he wanted to do was to push her away, but he couldn’t help the need he had to mark her as his own. Short of renting a plane to fly a banner across the city that said Lola’s mine, so hands off, he had done just about everything.
The only reason he hadn’t shouted “I love you” from the rooftops was because he knew how skittish Lola was. Sure, he could say it, but who wanted to be the one to put those words out there first? It’s not like he could take it back if she didn’t say it, too. Not that he doubted she loved him. He just knew she was scared shitless.
Opening the door to the deli, he walked in, intent on taking her out for lunch. He wanted to do more things outside of the bedroom so Lola would see that they were just as compatible in the real world as they were in the bedroom. But all thoughts fled from his head as he saw Lola standing next to the counter, talking to Phillip Hecht and Rylee.
On any other day the sight wouldn’t have even fazed him, but there was something about the way Phillip was looking at Lola that made Marcus see red. It took everything he had not to scowl at the stout man. Overall, Marcus basically liked Phillip. He was truly a good guy, for a Northerner. He was respectful, didn’t kick small animals, as far as Marcus knew, and went to church every Sunday. But if he didn’t stop looking at Lola like she was his favorite ice cream on a hot day, Marcus was going to send him to his maker a lot sooner than he needed to go.
The dinging of the bell on the door turned Lola’s attention to him, and the smile that flashed across her face was almost enough to cool his rising temper. Almost ...
Phillip turned around to see what held Lola’s interest and eyed Marcus warily as he approached. It was a completely male thing, the way they both sized each other up, wondering at the importance of the other in Lola’s life.
“Where y’at, Marcus?” Phillip asked, holding his hand out, the perpetual good guy.
The words sounded all wrong coming from Phillip’s mouth. It sounded as silly as Marcus would have trying to say “How you doin’?” in a really bad Brooklyn accent. Phillip was a texian, a person who didn’t speak the tongue, trying to blend in, and it was as obvious as a preacher in a whorehouse. Phillip would never fit in, no matter how many times he watched The Big Easy.
Marcus shook his hand, resisting the need to squeeze it in some kind of masculine show of dominance, and replied briskly, “Just fine, Phillip. In the mood for a bite to eat?”
“Not really. I just came in to see if I could convince this lovely lady --” Phillip paused to wink at Lola. “-- here to go out to dinner with me tonight.”
Phillip was a dead man. Marcus’s forced smiled turned into a scowl as he stared at the interloper. “And she said?”
“Actually, I haven’t said anything, yet.” Lola sent him a look almost as fierce as his own.
“Really,” he growled, turning his glare on her. Marcus wanted her to deny it, but the challenging look in her eyes told him the truth. Lola was running. She was actually going to hide behind Phillip, as if anyone could save her now. “I”m thinking that she won’t be able to make it tonight, Phil.”
Phillip looked back and forth between them as if trying to figure out what was going on. “Why’s that?”
“Yes, why is that?” Lola crossed her arms over her chest, daring him with her glare.
“Because I’m thinking it’s going to be awfully difficult for her to eat dinner when she’s not able to sit down.”
Eyes widening, Lola’s gasp of outrage was almost as loud as Rylee’s chuckle. “My office. Now!” Lola thundered as she turned and marched out of the room.
“Maybe another time, Phillip,” he threw over his shoulder as he made to follow Lola. The shocked look on Phillip’s face was almost worth the chewing-out he was sure to get from Lola.
Marcus made his way to the back of the deli, to Lola’s dinky office, where she was waiting for him with fire in her eyes and her hands on her hips. “Get in here now!” she hissed.
“Isn’t that the same thing you said last night?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“That’s going to be difficult for you to do with your hands tied above your head.” Marcus stroll
ed foward, slamming her office door shut behind him.
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“And I can’t believe you didn’t tell him you were unavailable,” he said coldly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was unavailable.”
If any other woman had said that to him, he would have thought it was a ploy to try to get something out of him, but when Lola said it, he knew that she really meant it, and it hurt like hell. “And what do you think we’ve been doing, Lola?”
Frustration clouded her eyes as she looked up at him helplessly. “I don’t know, Marcus. Fucking?”
“Is that all it is?” he asked, pulling her in tight to him. “Because I could have sworn there was more. That I felt something more solid and more important than a quick fuck.”
He leaned down and kissed her on the side of her neck as he pulled her in tighter to him. He knew her neck was a sensitive spot, just like several other little places on her soft body.
“Stop it, Marcus.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and he was willing to bet that it had little to do with the fact that they were in her office.
“I don’t think so, bébé.” He gently nipped at her neck, drawing a moan from her lips. “I know what you’re doing, chére, and it’s not going to work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lola denied, pulling her neck away from his roaming lips.
“Yes, you do. You’re testing me, chére, trying to see how far you can go before you push me away. But I have news for you: I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere. Do you think I like seeing Phillip with his hands all over you, chére?” he asked, his voice husky and deep.
Licking her lips nervously, Lola looked everywhere but at him. “You’re crazy.”
“If I am, it’s because you make me that way.” He chuckled, digging his fingers into her hips. “Let me clear it up for you. You’re mine. Point blank. Period. And if you ever let another man touch or look at you in any way that’s unseemly, I’m going to take it out on you.”
Marcus raised his hands and delivered a stinging slap to her plump rear end. Lola gasped and tried to pull back, but he held her tightly to him. “You’re mine, Lola. Don’t you forget it.”
“You just want to control me.” Pulling away, Lola turned her back to him.
“You stubborn minx,” he growled. “You always have to make things difficult. You’re not happy until we’re fighting and tearing at each other’s throats.”
“Because I know my role when we’re fighting, Marcus. I know what’s expected of me. This ... this whole thing is confusing.”
“What’s so confusing about wanting to be with each other?”
“Because it’s not what we do.”
“It’s what we do now.” Marcus couldn’t believe the excuses pouring out of Lola’s mouth. She was reaching for any- and everything to try to keep them apart, all because she was scared.
“Yeah, but for how long? Is this just a game with you?”
Startled, Marcus stared at her rigid back in amazement. Was that what she really thought? “Don’t you know, Lo? Don’t you know how I feel?”
“Yeah, horny and angry.”
Shaking his head, Marcus grabbed her hand and turned her around, against her wishes. Stubbornly, Lola’s tilted chin mocked him with her pride. She was so tough and unwilling to bend, and though at times it was annoying, it was also one of the things that Marcus most admired about her. Her will. “Lola, you make me feel many things -- horny, damn straight; angry, hardly. Frustrated, at times; pride, always; and love, unconditional.”
Lola eyes widened in shock, and she just stared at him, not saying a word, as if she were waiting for the floor to open and swallow her.
Amused, Marcus ran his hand down her soft cheek. “Did you hear me, Lo?”
Licking her lips nervously, Lola brought her hand up and slid her hair behind her ear. “Yes.”
Marcus watched her, waiting for her to say something else, but she didn’t, just bit her lip and watched him with wary eyes.
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“Maybe,” she replied weakly.
“I didn’t say it to scare you, or to force you to say anything back. I said it because I mean it. I love you.”
“Stop saying it like that.” Lola looked almost as scared as she sounded.
“Like what?”
She pulled up from trying to get some space. “Like it’s not a big deal for you to say it.”
Marcus could hear the fear in her voice, but he wasn’t going to let it deter him, or them, from where they were meant to be. “It’s not.”
“What do you want me to say?” she demanded.
“You can start by telling you how you feel.” It was like pulling teeth with her, but he knew it would be worth it, because she was worth it.
“I feel like you’re an overwhelming entity destined to swallow me whole.”
A soft smile tilted the corner of his lips as he reached out and gently brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Love is scary like that, isn’t it?”
“Terrifying,” she admitted, looking away from his probing eyes.
He cupped her chin in his hand, turning her back to face him. “You’re not the only one, brown eyes.”
“Are you admitting you’re scared?”
‘I’m scared of lots of things.” Marcus had to resist the urge to take her trembling mouth under his. She never let him see this soft side of her, and he found he liked it just as much as he liked the tough side.
“So what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to do the only thing we can.” Pulling her into his arms, he held her close to his heart, where she had made her home. “But I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what?” she teased, looking up at him.
Marcus growled, smacking her on her bottom. “Say it, brat.”
“Or ...”
“Or I won’t let you sleep tonight.”
“I think I can live with that.”
Chapter Eight
Love. She was in love with Marcus, and, more surprisingly, he was in love with her. Something about that just seemed odd, but then again, something about that just seemed so right. Never in a million years would she have figured them for a couple. Heck, she was still getting over the fact that they were sleeping together
Lola had always had feelings for him. Even when she’d wanted to bash him over the head until the white meat showed, she had still wanted to kiss him. And now they were doing more than kissing. They were loving, and making love, and being in love. How very surreal, she thought with a small smile. She had never counted on Marcus loving her; it wasn’t part of the deal. But she was going to take it any way she could.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and gave a long stretch. She had come over to her parents’ house for dinner and was now enjoying the last few rays of the setting sun with her father. Thin as a reed, with even thinner hair, Renee didn’t look like anyone’s ideal of perfection, but to the two women in his life, he could do no wrong. With laughing hazel-green eyes and a bushy russet beard that covered half of his lined face, Renee was a product of the bayou -- loud, wild, and loving -- and Lola held him up on a pedestal that was hard to topple.
Sitting outside with her father, she was partaking in Renee’s favorite after-dinner routine, sitting on his screened-in porch and smoking his cherry-wood pipe. The porch was the only place that Julia allowed Renee to smoke, and since she hated the smell of his tobacco, Lola knew it was the one place she could be that her mother wouldn’t dare to bother her.
The gentle swaying of her grand-mamere’s rocking chair was slowly lulling Lola asleep to the peaceful melody of the crickets and frogs playing on the grass and the sound of Nina Simone playing quietly on the stereo, when her father spoke, breaking her from her trance. “Mouche a miel,” he called to her softly. The nickname of her youth, one he had given her so many years ago. “Wake up, lazy girl, and come make the veiller with
your poppa.”
Smiling, Lola opened her eyes and looked over at her father. “I got the pareses, I fear tonight. Must have been too many beignets.”
“Good cooking, good company, good night, huh?” he teased.
“Most definitely.” Lola yawned loudly, stretching her tired body. “What did you want to talk about, Poppa?”
“What was going on the other day with you and Marcus? Your momma has been all in a tizzy. Planning weddings and rocking nonexistent babies.”
Rolling her eyes, Lola vowed to kill her mother. She was relentless. It was hard to sneak out to the porch in the first place without her mother measuring her for a wedding dress. Lola was having a tough enough time getting used to the idea of being with Marcus to even contemplate going to the next stage, but that wasn’t going to stop her mother.
Marcus hadn’t even mentioned the word marriage, but her mother already had dates picked out and matching color swatches. It was a good thing Lola didn’t want to have a hand in her own wedding, or anything. It had taken twenty minutes to get out of the kitchen. She had to promise to call her mother first thing as soon as Marcus proposed. It was a lie, of course, but it was all worth it if it made her mother happy and gave Lola a means to escape. “Poppa, Momma is crazy. Why do you even listen to her?”
“As if I have a choice,” he kidded, looking at her with a smile. “But I was curious, of course, because your aunt Beverly and I have been talking about expanding the deli and maybe opening up one in her neck of the woods. And I was thinking of you running it.”
Freezing, Lola felt her mouth fell open in shock. She had been after her father for years, trying to get him to open up a shop in Baton Rouge, but he had always found a reason not to. The second she was finally finding a reason to stay, her dad was giving her a way out.
“You look surprised, mouche a miel.”
Surprised was putting it lightly. “I guess I am. What made you change your mind?”
“I think this is probably the best time to expand. Business has been great, and I have a levelheaded person to open it up, so why not?”
Loving Lola Page 6
