She squeaked in surprise at the sensation of his hands on her, the warmth of his chest, his arm under her knees. She felt the gaze of the workers around her, but she was barely aware of them as her body focused completely on the feel of him against her, the way her breath fluttered in her throat. He smelled of his cologne and sweat, with the faintest traces of their sex. The rain fell over them as he carried her through the yard, past the fence and out to the sidewalk near his car. He carefully set her on her feet.
“Thank you,” she said. “But that wasn’t necessary.”
“Those shoes are not meant for walking through a disaster area,” he said with a nod at her secondhand, plain black Jimmy Choo pumps.
Only after he set her on her feet and she regained the full use of her senses did Diana take in the destruction around her. She gasped. The storm had done its work during the night. On the narrow street lined with various fruit trees, several trees lay across the road, blocking traffic. One house had its roof completely caved in by a massive mango tree with fat, ripe fruit still hanging from its branches. Mangoes were splattered all over the street while branches and amputated tree limbs lay on top of cars, on porches, even halfway through windows. Diana shuddered, wondering how her house had fared during the storm.
Amid the fire trucks parked in the streets and the city’s vehicles with the Miami-Dade logo on the doors, she noticed Marcus’s car. The silver Mercedes was relatively undamaged, only with green and rotted leaves sticking to its silver body, a few fallen twigs on its hood, trash and tree debris swirling in the water around its curbed tires. His wasn’t the only car undamaged by the storm. All along the street sat cars placid and whole under the rain as the sun struggled to pierce the clouds.
“Let me drive you home,” Marcus said.
Normally, Diana would have told him never mind. She’d walked the four blocks in the rain and high heels the morning before, and she would again. She had a perfectly functioning umbrella, after all. But the idea that she could potentially see her house like the ones on this block, half-demolished with tree limbs smashing the roof and windows, made her not want to go through that alone.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”
They got into the car, and he skillfully maneuvered it around the tree limbs and fallen branches and, guided by her directions, took her the short way home. The neighborhood near her office was the worst hit. As they drove the streets leading to her house, she couldn’t speak. She could only stare out the window, fingers tensely clenched in her lap. She saw fewer downed trees, no ravaged houses, just small bits and pieces of twigs and branches. Nothing dangerous. As they neared her house, she held her breath.
The house was fine.
Diana released a grateful breath.
None of her trees had fallen. The roof was intact. So were her windows and doors. Only a few of the roses blooming in the garden looked battered as they bobbed their heads beneath the rain’s steady drizzle. Purple and white bougainvillea petals scattered the length of the drive, but the plants themselves seemed mostly unharmed.
Marcus stopped the car in her driveway and she got out, her hands shaking in relief.
“Thank you,” she said when Marcus came to stand by her side. Raindrops fell on her face, sliding into her eyelashes, over her cheeks. Diana fought the urge to lean into his strong form, to simply rest.
It had been a long twenty-four hours. All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed next to a warm body and not worry about anything. Maybe have some of the chicken soup she had left in the refrigerator. She needed comfort. She needed warmth.
But, as her gaze flicked to Marcus’s concerned face, she wasn’t sure he was the one she needed to get any of that from. Her body cried out its “yes” for him in so many ways. But her family responsibility told her to leave him alone. There was only danger for her in his direction.
Diana took the keys from her purse to put them in the door, but they fell from her hands. The second time they fell, Marcus scooped them up and easily unlocked the door. He handed the keys back to her.
“Thank you.” Diana worried the inside of her lip. “I—”
“I don’t expect you to invite me in.” Marcus’s deep voice rumbled in her ears. “I would like to see you again, though.” He took a card from his wallet and slipped it into her hand. “I hope you’d like to see me, too.”
Then he bent and kissed her briefly on the mouth.
“Get some rest,” he called out as he walked to his car.
His loafers tapped against the wet cement as he walked away in the rain. Long after his car turned the corner, she could still feel the tingling on her lips from where he’d kissed her.
On automatic pilot, Diana walked inside her house, then closed and locked the door behind her. But as soon as the click of the latch sounded, she trembled. Leaned back against the door. A breeze from the AC touched her lips, brushed coolly over them, reminding her of the light press of Marcus’s mouth against hers before he had walked away. Walked away as if nothing had happened, when she should have been the one to do that.
She hadn’t meant for the night to happen. Diana blinked from her stupor. She dropped her keys into the small Chihuly bowl by the door, a gift from one of the donors to Building Bridges, and kicked off her shoes. But not meaning for it to happen wasn’t the same thing as not wanting it to happen. Because she had wanted him. Even now, the desire for him sat in her body like bubbling honey. A rolling sweetness she couldn’t ignore. It didn’t matter what her mother said about Marcus. It didn’t matter how her father had died. It didn’t matter what her brother thought.
She trembled.
A bath. Yes. She needed a bath to distract herself from Marcus and what happened between them. A bath, then bed. Diana made her way to her bathroom.
More than an hour later, she came out of the bathroom to the sound of her cell phone ringing. Trish.
“Hey, girl,” she said breathlessly, toweling herself dry.
“Thank God! Are you okay?” Trish sounded like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I was just about to drive over there. I saw your office on the news!”
“I didn’t realize we were big enough to make the news.” Diana draped her damp towel over the shoji screen in her bedroom and walked naked to sit on the edge of her bed.
“Probably because yours was one of the few buildings with any real damage from the storm.” Her friend took a deep breath. Diana heard the sound of liquid pouring. Coffee? Rum? In the background, she thought she heard a masculine voice, a low sound.
“Tell me what happened, honey. Are you okay? Were you in the building?”
“Nothing happened. Yes. Yes.” Diana took her cocoa-butter lotion from the bedside table and began rubbing it into her skin.
“Oh, my God!” Trish screamed. “How can you be so damn nonchalant?”
“Because I got out of the building okay. The firefighters rescued us before we got hungry enough to eat each other’s butt cheeks.”
“Us?” Trish latched on to her slip right away.
Diana flushed at her carelessness. “Yes. I was working.”
“I know you were working, but you’re the only one in that office who stays past six. Who kept you company last night?”
Diana nibbled her bottom lip, reluctant to tell Trish but not wanting to lie either. “It was Marcus. He came over last night to make sure I hadn’t been swept away in the storm.”
Instead she had been swept away by something else. Pulled under and way out of her depth.
“Marcus Stanfield came over to check on you?” Trish made an incredulous noise. “I heard he was many things, but randomly kind is not one of them. What did he want, and did you give it to him?”
Diana’s face went hot again. “He is kind,” she said.
“And he got the punany off you last night.” Trish said it like she was absolutely sure.
“Yes,” Diana said softly after a brief silence.
That hadn’t been what he’d come for l
ast night. She knew that. His kindness had radiated from him despite who his father was. He had offered to take her home. Swept her into his arms like a princess in a fairy tale. Set her senses aflame.
“Girl!” Trish’s shocked and excited whisper came clearly through the phone, as if she didn’t want someone else in the room with her to know what she was talking about. “Was he any good?”
Although she had gotten more invasive questions from Trish in the past, Diana flushed from head to toe. She fiddled with the bottle of lotion in her hands, resisting for the first time the schoolgirl’s impulse to gush about her night with Marcus. She wanted to tell Trish all the things he made her feel, how she had flown completely out of her body and mind with all the sensations he stirred in her.
“He’s very good,” she finally confessed, a smile sinking into her cheeks.
Trish snorted. She sounded like she was walking, cupping the phone to muffle the sound of her voice.
“Who’s there with you?” Diana frowned, wondering why her friend was whispering in her own home.
Pause. “A lover. He’s still in bed. I don’t want to disturb him.”
That was new. Normally, Trish didn’t care about the comforts of any man. Especially when he was at her place. At their hotels or vacation cabins or Swiss chalets, she was her most accommodating, her most mistresslike self. But at home, she was boss of her space and she let them all know it.
“This guy sounds special. Who is he?”
“No one you need to know about,” Trish said dismissively.
Now it was Diana’s turn to snort. “You ask me all about how I spent my night, and you can’t tell me who you were snuggled up with last night. Not fair.”
“It’s a new thing,” Trish said. “I’ll tell you about it soon.”
“If you say so.” She yawned. “Listen, I’m going to take a nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night. We’ll talk later.”
Trish sighed through the phone. “Okay. Fine. But call me when you wake up. I want to take you to dinner so you can dish about all this good stuff. I’m intrigued. Finally, a firsthand source about the younger Stanfield and what he’s working with.”
Diana laughed. “I’m not going to tell you that!”
“We’ll see.”
She hung up the phone, still smiling.
Chapter 11
Marcus drove home thinking about Diana and their night together. He felt like she had been imprinted on him. Her scent. Her image. Everything. He’d never had a woman affect him so strongly. She called up both a protective and animal instinct in him. He wanted to save her from everything that could possibly harm her. And he wanted to devour her, take all of her into his mouth, his hands, his life, feast on her as if she would completely fill him.
He wondered what she was doing. If she had already forgotten about him. If she would use the card he gave her and call. Marcus couldn’t remember the last time a woman had confused and confounded him like this. Usually, if a woman wasn’t interested in playing, he’d dismiss her and go on to the next. He was not one for the chase. He had more important things to put his time and energy into.
But with Diana, he was a foxhound on the hunt, catching her wild scent in the air and running it to the ground. He had to have her. The memory of her thoroughly female scent against his skin made his heart beat faster. Her soft breath in his ear. The way her body had responded to his.
He swallowed and refocused as he drove across the bridge to Star Island and down the wide avenue to his front gate. He pressed a button on his dash and the wide iron gates eased open, allowing access. Aside from a small amount of tree debris littering the drive, his property looked completely untouched by the storm. The rain continued its unrelenting drizzle, tapping gently on the roof of his car and sliding down the tinted windows as he drove down the winding, tree-edged road.
Even after the long night with Diana, he was far from sleepy. It was time to get back to work. His secretary had already left him several messages this morning about meetings and contracts that needed his attention.
Marcus took a deep breath and prepared for his day.
Once in the house, he quickly showered and changed, then headed upstairs to his home office. Working in an office building was never his preference. Ever since he decided to go into business for himself, he preferred to work on his boat, at home, damn near anywhere except his luxurious office in downtown Miami.
He worked hard but liked to play even harder, using his money to get the very best out of life. Jetting to any corner of the world whenever he felt like it. Taking off at a moment’s notice on his yacht. Partying for several days straight, his nights fueled by alcohol, music and his own considerable will. But as hard as he played, he also knew the value of business. Growing up at Quentin Stanfield’s knee, he could never forget that.
When he started his business nine years ago, he made sure his research was thorough and the profit potential considerable. Now, Sucram Holdings was a multibillion-dollar earning company with diversified interests that kept Marcus’s pockets flush and his mind active.
In the past few years, his father had encouraged him to try his hand at real-estate management, buying up land and buildings all over Miami and a few islands scattered in the Caribbean. It had turned out to be sound enough advice, with his father connecting his company, Q Stanfield Incorporated, to a few of Marcus’s ventures. The connection wasn’t strictly necessary but, although Marcus initially wondered why his father felt the need to join their interests, he had agreed. It was no hardship to work with the man he respected and owed everything to.
When Marcus walked into his office, a cup of coffee, still hot, was waiting for him at his desk. He nodded a silent thank-you to his absent butler then got to work.
*
Five hours later found him on the phone with his secretary, Irene. Her calm and precise voice came through the speakers of his desktop computer.
“That’s it for today, Mr. Stanfield,” Irene said, her warm Southern California voice swinging up with a smile he could almost see. They had been on the phone for the two hours, hammering out the details of upcoming meetings, making sure nothing had fallen under his radar during the past few days.
A beep sounded—another call coming through.
“Oh, one moment, please, sir. I think that’s the mayor’s office.”
“Of course,” Marcus said.
While she tended to the call, he gathered up the most recent collection of documents she’d faxed to him, looking them over as he prepared to sign them. After a quick scan, he noted the date and realized they needed to be messengered over to his lawyers by the end of the day. He made a mental note to let Irene know.
It was the final paperwork for the deal his father had called him about a few days before, the agreement to buy up a few blocks in a developing area near downtown. On paper, it was a good deal. Four city blocks in a mixed commercial/residential part of town that, once finalized, he would pass on to his father. Quentin Stanfield planned to knock down most of the buildings and begin construction on a mixed-use development he’d had in mind for years.
Marcus carefully looked over the documents, pleased that everything was in order and exactly what he and his lawyers had discussed. He took up his pen to sign his name when the address of the buildings caught his eye. A muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched. Something was very familiar about that address.
He looked away from it, his mind immediately supplying the image of a swinging gate, a mailbox, a tree fallen onto a once sturdy and neat porch.
Son of a—
Even as the shock registered, his pen was already moving across the bright white paper, signing his name and adding the date.
He was buying up Diana’s nonprofit. Marcus looked down at the contract, then dropped the pen into the crystal holder on the desk.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Irene came back on the line. “That was the mayor’s secretary. She wanted to know if you’ll attend the campaign fund-raiser they’re
having at Vizcaya next week.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you were very busy but would pencil the date in your calendar in case you were able to make time.”
“Perfect,” he said.
Irene knew how much he hated political functions. He tried to stay away from politics as much as possible, although his father always stressed to him how important it was that he cultivate powerful and well-connected friends.
“Thank you, Irene.” He straightened the documents and put them in an envelope. “I have the last of the papers for the Baltree Heights deal. Send a messenger over here to get them delivered to the offices of Dillinger and Crane, please.”
He frowned as he mentioned the lawyers handling the land deal, of two minds about how to go forward.
“Of course, sir.” He heard her type something on her computer. “They’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’m also sending the messenger over with a selection of ties for you to consider. The Brannon-Peoples wedding is this weekend.”
Marcus smiled. “Thank you, Irene.”
He heard the answering smile in her voice. “You’re very welcome, boss. I’ll get out of your hair now and let you get back to more important things.”
He looked at his watch and realized the day was more than half gone. “You know just what to say to get me back on track,” he said. “Once you take care of these last few details, go ahead and take the rest of the day off. With the storm, I wasn’t even expecting you to come in today.”
“It was just a little breeze and a baby sprinkle,” she said dismissively. “But thank you for the time off.”
“My pleasure,” Marcus said. “I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”
He hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair, his eyes moving to the envelope waiting for the courier. He was buying up property that included Diana’s nonprofit. Dammit. Just when she was starting to trust him, this had to come up.
The chair’s leather squeaked as he shifted in its depths in discomfort. This was a good deal. One that had been too good to pass up. The price was right and the neighborhood was perfect for his plans. But his plans hadn’t included Building Bridges. The house just happened to be right in the middle of the planned development. Right in the damned middle.
Sultry Pleasure Page 9
