by Stasia Black
“That’s what the maid is for,” Marcus said sharply.
Cora jumped at his voice, but hurried on. “Well I could do other things. Um, wifely things.” Cora couldn’t help but looked down at her plate again. “The gods know we’re compatible in that department.”
She took a quick breath in and forced herself to look back up at him. “I guess what I’m proposing is a cease-fire between you and me.”
“A cease-fire,” he repeated.
She nodded, forcing herself to keep his gaze even though like always, the intensity of his gaze made doing so a difficult feat.
He was quiet a moment but then he moved swiftly, standing and moving around the booth until he stood at her side, hand held down to her. “I accept.”
Cora felt her mouth drop open. He accepted? Just like that?
“Okey-dokey,” she whispered. She reached up her hand and he clasped it firmly.
“Tomorrow I’ll have another stylist come in,” he said as he swiftly walked to the front door, dragging her along with him.
Well he was full of surprises today. “Where are we going?”
“To the theater. But right now we’re going home.”
Twenty-Three
The driver turned off the boulevard of respectable brownstones into a private drive and radioed ahead for the caretaker to open the iron gates. A twenty-foot-tall railing ran all around the property perimeter, along with a thick evergreen hedge. It hid the grounds from the view of the street, and in the forested areas, delineated the property woods from the rest of the park.
Maybe Marcus hadn’t liked her cease-fire idea after all and he’d brought her out here to kill her and bury her in the woods.
But no, the step forward they’d seem to take back at Paulie’s had felt real enough.
Even now, while Marcus wasn’t talking, just listening to music like normal, his hand was still outstretched towards hers, their fingers interlocking.
So she dared to ask, “Where exactly are we going? I thought you said we were going home.”
“We are. To the Estate.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Cora pressed. “The Estate?”
Marcus let out a sigh, but it wasn’t like she’d ever seen this place before and curiosity was natural. “The Estate is the last layover from the old Ubeli family wealth. Twenty acres of prime real estate, still within city limits. It backs up to the larger Park, which spans many more blocks.”
“An oasis in the center of the city.”
Marcus nodded.
“But hardly a welcoming place, as you can see.” He gestured a hand towards the window.
And Cora got what he meant. As the car crept down the winding drive, she tried to picture a young Marcus running around the manicured lawns of the Estate. Even during the day, the shadows lay long under the ancient trees.
No wonder Marcus now preferred a modern penthouse to the dark Estate.
The Estate house itself loomed three stories over a paved forecourt. Built of stone, she’d bet the house could host twenty guests at a time overnight, and entertain a few hundred in the long ballroom. Tonight someone left the light on in one room upstairs. The rest of the windows were cold and grey, staring at the surrounding forest.
It all had a very Gothic feel. And taking a second glance at the Estate architecture itself, she finally saw it for what it was: a fortress, built by the elder Ubeli to protect his family during a war.
Two more cars pulled into the drive. Cora glanced out the cold windows nervously as Sharo and a few other men she recognized as Shades exited the black sedans in the drive.
“Why did we come here?” Cora asked as Sharo approached the house and opened the lock. Several Shades from the car behind him went inside first, no doubt to doublecheck the house for security purposes. Marcus had seemed particularly on edge lately and Cora had noticed more Shades around than usual.
“You said you wanted a cease-fire. And as my wife, you should be familiar with my family Estate. This is where I usually stay, especially on the weekends when I need a break from city life.”
He was bringing her in. Letting her see all of him.
“My childhood was a very happy one here. Until it wasn’t.”
“Your sister,” Cora whispered. “How old were you when she died?”
“Sixteen.”
Cora watched the way the vein in his throat flexed as he swallowed and she’d bet anything in the world he blamed himself for his sister’s death. But still, sixteen? He’d been a boy who’d already lost his parents, all alone in the world.
“I bet she was wonderful.”
Marcus jerked his head once up and down and then turned away. “Come on, I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”
It was only about nine o’clock and while yes, the day had come with a certain amount of exhaustion, being in Marcus’s most intimate space had adrenaline shooting like crazy through Cora.
Did he bring his girls here often? To impress them with his family’s wealth? Somehow she doubted that.
Why hadn’t he ever brought her here before?
No doubt tying up a captive and tossing her in the basement here would incur less risk than doing it at the top of one of the most in demand downtown hotels.
What if everything he said in the restaurant was just a lie to get her out here for exactly that purpose?
Cora’s hands trembled as she reached for the seat handle but the driver was already there, opening it from the other side. Marcus came around as well, offering a hand down to her. There was nothing else to do other than take it. The sharp points of her heels dug into the grass as she stood.
“Maybe I should have changed back into my sneakers I wore at the shelter,” she murmured quietly.
“Don’t worry. There’s a stone path right up here.”
“Oh. Okay,” Cora said.
Marcus held her arm as they walked the narrow flagstone path from the drive to the door where Sharo was already waiting for them. Apparently the Shades’ security check of the house had shown nothing awry and Sharo gestured them inside.
“We’d like the residence to ourselves for the evening,” Marcus said and Sharo nodded.
“I’ll let the Shades know. Only perimeter patrol.”
Marcus raised his chin and then he and Cora were over the threshold and inside.
Marcus didn’t seem to be in the mood to show her around, either.
No, he carried her straight up the central staircase, in spite of her repeated squeals that she could walk, she could walk! all the way down a short hall to the master bedroom, where he deposited her in the center of the bed.
He followed her down, sliding his knee between her thighs.
Oh, so they were going to start this portion of the evening early tonight, was that it?
He rarely came to her bed before midnight. Sometimes hearing him open the door woke her up, other times she managed to stay awake in anticipation. But it was barely nine o’clock, twilight still hung outside, and when Marcus leaned over he hit a button that turned on two table lamps to a soft muted glow. So apparently they wouldn’t be doing this in the darkness, either, as was per their usual.
Cora trembled underneath him.
He planted his elbows beside her head on the bed and dipped his hips, dragging his erection against her most sensitive place. His greedy hands were on her thighs, reaching underneath the skirt of her dress.
His hands on her body felt so familiar.
Too familiar.
She’d gotten used to fucking this way.
But after all they’d said, if he really meant for it to be a cease-fire…
His lips kissed down her collarbone and the next thing she knew he had latched onto a nipple.
It wasn’t that things had become routine in bed. Far from it. Marcus was always showing her new positions and ways to feel him inside her and to get her off.
But apart from the first time, he rarely sought eye contact. His kisses weren’t often on the lips, and he too
k his pleasure and left to return to his own bedroom.
And Cora didn’t think she could keep giving herself to him if that was the way it was going to continue.
She wasn’t sure if Marcus felt her tense up beneath him, but his head came up and, as if he could sense the very thing she was thinking, his gaze caught hers.
If true inner freedom came with taking action and claiming it, well, here went nothing.
Cora grabbed Marcus’s face with both hands and drew him down to her face. To her mouth.
She didn’t know what she was doing. So she smashed her lips against his. It was awkward. She never initiated kisses and she was terrible at it—
But then his lips gentled on hers and his clever tongue began to tease at her lips until she couldn’t help but relax in response. And when his hands on her sex over her dress did something that felt especially good, she gasped.
Marcus used the opportunity to slip his tongue in her mouth and oh—oh—
Her tongue moved tentatively to meet his and holy shit! The second the tips of their tongues touched, it was like connecting a live wire straight to her clit.
She moaned shamelessly and lifted her pelvis up against his hand.
“That’s right,” he growled. “That’s how it should be. Give it to me.”
At this point, Cora couldn’t not give it to him.
He shoved her skirt up and her panties down, not even bothering to get them all the way off, just to her ankles.
She kicked at them but only halfheartedly because Marcus had shifted his weight above her. She hadn’t even heard him undo his zipper, but the heat and length of him was undeniably at her center, the fat head of his cock pressing and teasing for entrance.
Cora let out the highest pitched cry yet. She wanted him. She wanted him more than anything she’d ever wanted in her entire life.
Now she knew her answer. She didn’t care if she was caged or free. As long as she came home to this man every night, she would be happy. Deliriously so.
She loved him.
She grinned at the revelation, wanting to tell him so that he could feel her joy.
But the next second it dimmed. Because there was no way he felt the same. And what the hell was she doing, loving him? She was still the naïve girl imagining she was a princess and he was the prince and that there was still a way this could end in anything other than tragedy.
“What?” Marcus wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. So close their chests were cemented together like…like he couldn’t bear to lose her. “What has you looking so sad?”
She forced a smile. Dammit, she wouldn’t ruin this. Caged or not, tonight she wanted to fly completely free. She wanted to let it all go. To surrender absolutely to the bliss of being in his arms.
She tried to kiss him and distract him but he shook his head.
“Cora,” he demanded, balls deep inside her, invading her everywhere.
There was no getting away from Marcus Ubeli. There never had been.
“You were here, with me. But then you went away.”
He was supposed to be some dangerous crime Lord. He wasn’t supposed to see shit like that. But maybe reading people had made him so good at what he did.
Cora wanted to hide her face against his cheek. But she doubted he’d let her get away with that either.
So she looked up at him, and meeting his eyes this time was one of the bravest things she’d ever done in her life.
“Marcus,” she whispered. “I still feel it. It never went away. Not fully. I still feel it, Marcus. And more.”
Marcus’s eyes got dark at that but he didn’t make her explain further.
This time it was his lips crashing on hers and the way he kissed her, it was like he was devouring her. Did that mean that he, too—? Had he finally developed feelings—?
But there was no time to analyze things because it was moving quickly now.
Marcus fiddled with the zip at the back of her dress, managed to get it halfway down, whereupon it got stuck. And Marcus ripped the rest of the dress in half to get it off of her.
Cora screeched in protest but Marcus only grinned. It wasn’t a twitch of his mouth, either. It was a full, all out Marcus grin accompanied by the dimple and it took Cora’s breath away.
Which was unfair because then, when Marcus rolled them and flipped them, Cora was unprepared. Especially when she ended up on top.
“Wanna see you ride me, gorgeous.”
Cora’s mouth dropped open but the way his gaze glittered, Cora wasn’t in a mood to deny him. So she undid the clasp of her bra and took it off, shaking her hair out of its pins while straddling him. It had the intended effect of making her tits jiggle back and forth.
Marcus groaned, “Stop with the torture. Get that hot little cunt on my cock again.”
“So crude,” Cora pretended to chastise, leaning over and wagging a finger in his face. This had the bonus benefit of allowing her nipples to brush the hair on his chest and pebble up.
A sight which was not lost on Marcus. “Fuck,” he whispered harshly before reaching for her breasts.
He caught the entire weight of them in his large hands and he immediately began to roll them and gently pinch at her nipples.
She couldn’t help the immediate whimpered gasps that came from his actions. “Yes, yes. Like that. Just like that.”
She didn’t want him to stop for even a second, so it was her who reached down to align his member with her entrance again.
And with him torturing her nipples and filling her again with his thick, long, shaft, she was right on the edge and yet it felt like they’d only barely begun.
She rolled her hips and ground down against him. She didn’t care that they’d only begun. She needed it. She fucking needed it. Now.
So she rolled and ground down hard and dirty. She grasped Marcus’s hair and crashed their mouths together as the orgasm hit her. She screamed it into his mouth and clenched around him as tight as she could. His thrusts started getting more frantic and she hoped he finished soon because she didn’t think the orgasm would last for much longer.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Oh! One last little aftershock and it was done.
Marcus had slowed down his thrusts and she frowned. Did he—?
A gentle chuckle from Marcus rumbling beneath her was her answer.
“No, honey, I didn’t come yet. That was the first of many for you and when I come, you’ll know it.”
He rolled her yet again, this time so that she was on her stomach and he was coming at her from behind. He lifted her hips up and sank into her.
SMACK, he spanked her ass.
“Hey!”
Marcus chuckled deeper. “I may have let you be on top for a minute, but don’t forget who’s in charge.”
Chill bumps raced up and down Cora’s body. And not out of fear.
So Cora curved her head over her shoulder to look at him and she blinked her pretty lashes and she said, “Yes, Sir.”
If she thought his eyes had been bright before, they were nothing to the way his entire face came alive at her words.
He landed another smack to her opposite ass cheek.
And afterwards he soothed the skin he just smacked, sliding a finger down and around his shaft to gather some of her cream and rub it all around her ass, including her asshole.
Where, as he began to fuck her again, she felt one of his fingers start to probe.
That sent her into a full-bodied shudder. What was he— That was so dirty—
So why did it feel so damn good?
He stroked forcefully in and out of her sex, one hand at her clit, the other at her ass. And it was so much stimulation, all Marcus, everywhere Marcus—
Cora unabashedly howled her second release, squeezing on Marcus as he hit that glorious spot inside her with his every thrust, clenching and releasing around him, and clenching and releasing and clenching—
Marcus was right behind her, leaning over her shoulder to kiss her as he stilled, vi
olently jerked back once and shoved back home.
Cora clenched and squeezed around him, wanting to hold onto him forever.
But as the moments always did, this one too came to an end.
Cora felt tears immediately flood her eyes. Dear gods, what was she thinking? How would amazing, soul shattering sex help anything when it came to her confusion over Marcus?
Marcus climbed off her and Cora immediately rolled to the edge of the bed, reaching for tissues from the nightstand to clean herself up.
“Where’s my bedroom?” she asked, proud of herself that she managed an even somewhat steady tone of voice.
Marcus didn’t say anything but right as she’d tossed the tissues in the trashcan, an arm hooked around her waist from behind.
“Marcus, what—?”
But she was already being dragged back down into bed. Marcus climbed beside her, or rather behind her, spooning her. He threw the sheet and comforter over them.
He turned off the lamps on the side table with his other hand and settled into bed as if nothing was wrong or out of the ordinary.
Marcus had never once cuddled after sex.
Usually the man treated the bed like it was a hot potato he couldn’t wait to get away from fast enough after they were finished. So what gave?
Marcus slid his hand around her waist. It crept upwards until he was cupping one of her boobs. He slung a leg over hers, all but pinning her to the bed.
Did he think she’d go wandering off throughout his grand Estate and find some family secret?
But as his breathing quickly eased behind her and he began to gently snore she was hit by an even more stunning thought: he’d really meant the cease-fire. The truce.
This was what life could be like with Marcus, as his wife.
Everything she’d said this evening to him over dinner… A big part of her never thought anything like that was possible with Marcus Ubeli. She thought she’d make her big speech and he’d keep on being his normal asshole self and at least she wouldn’t feel as bad about running when the time came.
But now?
She sank her head into the pillow beside Marcus, while his arms wrapped around her, making her feel more safe, beloved, and cherished than she ever had in her life.