by Nora Ash
I raised both eyebrows. “I find that really hard to believe.”
Finally, he turned away from me, relegating his full focus to his glass as he took a swig. “They’re scared of me.”
Well, that I could believe. I looked back at my own drink, mulling over my plan of attack. Now that he wasn’t staring at me so intensely, I could think clearly again—even if every cell of my body was still keenly aware of his proximity.
“I want to know you,” I said, glancing out the corner of my eye for a reaction.
Marcus put his glass down, still not looking in my direction.
“You’re scared of me, too.” The deep rumble in his voice sent shivers up my back. If he knew I was flirting, he wasn’t responding. But he wasn’t ignoring me, either.
“Yes,” I said, deciding honesty was my best course with this man. Gently, I placed my hand back on top of his thigh, a bit lower this time. Again, he tensed at my touch, but not as rigidly as before.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another man in my life.” I glanced up at his profile, flustered by the knowledge that this wasn’t just a line delivered to ensnare a mark, nor was it a lie. “Maybe that’s what scares me.”
He looked at me then, and this time, the darkness in his eyes bore the faintest trace of heat. But it wasn’t the kind of lust I’d seen in a man’s eyes before. It was far more volatile, far more frightening than anything I’d known before, and even the barest hint of his desire set my body aflame with unrivaled need.
“No, Evelyn. That’s not why you’re afraid.”
“Is it because you’d try to hurt me?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
His nostrils pulled up, a flash of anger mixing with the heat in his gaze. “No.”
A breath of relief I hadn’t realized I’d been holding rushed out of my lungs. I believed him. I had no idea what it was about him, but something at the very depths of my being knew he wasn’t lying. I grasped my drink and downed the rest of the glass in one, burning mouthful. Then I slid off my seat and stood to face him on shaky legs.
“Come.”
Despite the minimal movement of his mouth, I recognized his question in the gesture.
“You’re taking me to your place.” I slipped my hand from his thigh up to his arm, resting it on the soft fabric of his shirt. “And then you’ll let me get to know you.”
The slightest crease appeared between his dark eyebrows, his gaze flickering to my hand on his arm before he found my eyes once more. The desire in his own was more prominent now, and I had to clench my thighs together to quell the sudden rush of warmth blooming out from between them. God, I wanted him. In that moment, I didn’t care about my assignment or Brigs or any of the shit I was mixed up in that’d landed me here. I didn’t even care that that barely bridled ferocity in his icy gaze flamed as he looked me over once more, taking in my curves as well as my face.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he rumbled.
“Then show me,” I said, swallowing thickly as he stared me down.
Marcus exhaled through his nose. Then, moving as smoothly as a large cat, he got off the chair and held his hand out to me.
Gingerly, I put my palm in his.
When he closed his hand around mine, I knew I would never be the same as I had been before I met Marcus Steel.
* * * *
Chapter 3
Marcus
Evelyn Embry.
She was not meant to be here, not meant to be with me.
And yet there she sat, leaning into the passenger seat of my Porsche with her luscious breasts spilling out of her low neckline and the roundness of her thighs easily visible through the tight fabric of her dress.
My cock throbbed, and I fought back a shiver at the memory of her hand grazing against it when she’d so brazenly demanded my attention.
I’d never wanted a woman like I wanted her, from the moment her heat penetrated my trousers and into my skin. It took all I had to not just pull over and fuck her raw on the side of the road, leaned over my car with her dress hiked high around that fine arse of hers.
I clutched at the steering wheel and gritted my teeth.
This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let her into my car, shouldn’t have taken her hand when she’d told me I was bringing her home.
I had to pull over right this second and tell her to get out.
But everything in me reeled at the thought, the monster in my chest snarling in defiance. It didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t want to let her go.
Her scent, jasmine and honey and woman, permeated the air in my car, filling my nostrils until my cock was so hard it hurt. Everything about her made me burn with a need I’d never experienced before.
Why are you here, little one? I looked at her out the corner of my eye, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Why was she here? She recognized the monster in me; I saw it when she looked into my eyes. She may not have understood what she saw, but her body intuited the danger—there was no question about it. And still, she persisted.
It was too late for regrets. Too late to stop, because the moment our eyes locked, the monster had recognized her. I had no idea how, or why—why her, why now—but ever since she put her soft little hand on me, I’d been fighting tooth and nail to keep the monster down. Even now, it was roaring to break free and sweep me away in the liberating rush of oblivion I knew all too well.
I should never have taken her with me. I should have turned her down, should have left and not looked back.
I needed to end this, before she was inside my flat. Before the door closed behind us, with no one there but her and me.
I clasped my hands harder around the steering wheel to steady my thrumming pulse at the monster’s roar of denial.
No.
As I pulled into the parking garage underneath my high-rise apartment block, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: this woman was going to be mine, and there was nothing either of us could do to stop it.
* * * *
Chapter 4
Evelyn
The car ride to Marcus’ flat took place in complete silence, and it was enough for my brain to have regained some measure of control once he opened the door to his penthouse in one of the posher parts of London.
I drew in a deep breath as I stepped past him and over the threshold, catching the scent of his cologne again and that certain something behind it that went straight to my core. It made me shiver, partly from want and partly from the knowledge of what I was about to do.
Marcus Steel was sex on a stick, sure, but he was a lot of other things too. I’d never been in the presence of a human being who could awaken my reptile brain like he did. Gerald Brigs and his nephew might make my skin crawl, but my fear of them stemmed from knowing what they could do to me. With Marcus, it was this unmistakable sense that there was something dark and unbridled right beneath the surface, clawing to be set free.
And here I was, alone with him in his flat. More than willing to be naked and vulnerable underneath him.
I walked further into the apartment and set my purse on the kitchen island, focusing on my surroundings in an attempt at steadying my rampant hormones. As much as I wanted to climb him like a monkey, I needed a moment to collect myself. My body might have been on board with the evening’s development, but I was still here on a job.
I looked around for something to distract me—and found it at the far wall. The entire side of the room was made up of floor-to-ceiling windows, offering the most spectacular view of the city I could have ever imagined. Even in the dark, hundreds of thousands of lights from the streets below twinkled like a second set of stars.
“Wow,” I breathed, making my way to the glass so I could get the full view. It felt like having the entire city at my feet. “That is some view.”
Marcus didn’t answer me, but I heard him move further back in the flat. I was too mesmerized by the view to pay him any mind.
I’
d known he was wealthy from the jazz club he hung out in, and when he’d led me to his black Porsche it’d been firmly cemented. But this? This was what the one percent lived like. Views like this didn’t come below a seven-digit pay grade.
“It feels like everything down there is meaningless—like it’s so far removed, it doesn’t matter. It’s so… peaceful,” I mused, not expecting an answer from my silent companion. Feeling emboldened by the odd sense of calm, I wiggled out of my heels to dig my toes into the plush, luxurious rug that covered the parquet floors underneath a black sofa set. It felt exactly as good as I’d imagined, and I sighed with pleasure and turned to study the rest of the room. I’d been too preoccupied with the amazing view to really pay it much mind.
It was a big, open-plan room consisting of a kitchen by the entrance and a large living room, but it’d been sparsely decorated, the sofa set being the only real furniture in the room, save some bar stools by the kitchen island and a dining table further in.
No decorations adorned the walls either, but when my eyes caught a framed picture by the TV, I did a double take.
A cute baby with dark strands and gray eyes lay sprawled on a lambskin, looking at the camera with a wide smile. The frame was inscribed August 1, 2015.
“Is that… your kid?” Imagining Marcus with a child seemed near-impossible, and if the date on the frame was the baby’s birth date, then it was only a little more than a year and a half.
“No.” It was the first he’d spoken since the club, and the rumble of his voice made me look back at him, heat making its way to my abdomen again.
I raised an eyebrow at him. Who the heck had a picture of a kid who wasn’t theirs as the only decoration in their entire living room? “Whose then?”
“My brother, Blaine’s.”
Well, that explained the colorings matching Marcus’ so much. I squinted at the picture. “Boy or a girl?”
“Boy. His name is Aidan.”
Something softened in his voice when he said the baby’s name, and when I looked up at him, for a moment it was reflected in his eyes too.
“It’s funny, you don’t exactly come across as a family man,” I said.
“Family’s everything.”
I thought of my mother, the usual stab of sadness making my heart ache just a little. “Yeah.” There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for family—which was why I was in this situation in the first place.
I looked back up at Marcus and my sadness melted away.
The gentleness in his gaze was gone, a dark smolder taking its place.
My body reacted with a delicious shiver, choosing to focus on the obvious lust rather than the danger.
I wanted this—I wanted the raw, untamed parts of him to consume me. I wanted his body against mine, I wanted to taste those luscious lips of his, and to hell with what I’d have to do after.
With a small smile I undid my coat and dropped it on the floor before reaching behind me for my zipper. It came down easily, the sound of it filling the sudden silence in the room.
I felt Marcus’ eyes on me like a molten caress as I let go of my dress, letting it pool to the floor at my feet. I might have felt outclassed when we were in the jazz club together, but not now. He didn’t say a word, but the electricity of his rapt focus sparked in the air around me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that right now, at this moment, there was nothing in this world he wanted as much as he wanted me.
It made me feel powerful.
I reached up to let down my hair from the pinned updo, letting the ginger locks fall around my shoulders and brush the top of my pushed-up breasts. Even though the black lace bra technically still covered them, they were so indecently on display I was sure he’d be able to make out my nipples pebbling as his silent desire fanned my arousal.
I reached behind me again, this time unclasping my bra and letting it fall to the floor on top of my coat. My panties followed, and then I stood naked.
Marcus’ shaky exhale made me look back up into his eyes, the beginning of a coy smile on my lips. I was going to suggest he follow my lead, but the look on his face made me pause.
Fear.
He was… scared?
Only then did I notice he’d clutched his hands around the edge of the kitchen island, and that his knuckles were white from the strength he grasped it with.
“What are you afraid of?” I whispered.
“I want you,” he said, his voice gruff from obvious restraint. “Too much.”
I cocked my head as I took in his posture and the tight set of his jaw. He looked like a man who was doing everything he could to hold himself back. It made warm excitement trickle down my spine and goosebumps of pleasure rise up along my arms. As far as I was concerned, there was no such thing as being wanted too much by him, not right now.
I stepped out of my dress and panties, making sure to sway my hips as I walked toward him until I stood right in front of him. I only came up to his shoulders, and their span easily dwarfed even my curvy body, but this close I could practically feel the tension roll off him in waves. That someone as powerful as Marcus Steel was afraid of me gave me the confidence I needed to reach up and ghost my palms over his tensed shoulders before I began to unbutton his shirt, one button at a time.
The shaky intake of his breath as my hands skimmed over his hard pecs made me have to hide a smile. Yeah, he was in a bad state. It only made me feel bolder.
Once my fingers undid the last button, his shirt hung open and I had to bite my lip to hold back a gasp of my own. His clothes hadn’t been able to hide the shape or size of his powerful body, but the prominence of the stacks of hard, lean muscles underneath was unexpected. Marcus’ pecs narrowed down into a bulging row of abs, and just above his belt I could see the start of the pronounced V of his hips.
Holy cow.
I mindlessly reached out to let my palms stroke across his smooth body, enjoying the shiver my touch pulled from him. His skin was hot underneath my hands, and when I ghosted across his nipples with the tip of a finger they hardened into tight little points.
My own body responded to his with a flood of moisture. God, I needed more.
I reached back up to push the shirt off his shoulders and looked up at his face.
It was still a mask of restraint, but his eyes blazed with desire so hot it nearly set me on fire. Yet still, he wasn’t touching me.
Without breaking eye contact I reached back down, brushing down across his abs and the narrow trail of hair below his navel until I got a hold of his belt.
Marcus moved then, one of his large hands wrapping around my wrist. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.” I leaned in and kissed the center of his chest, not releasing my hold on his belt. He shuddered under my lips but held on to my wrist, his fingers spasming as my breath skimmed across his flesh.
“Evelyn…” His deep voice sounded anguished, as if holding back was causing him physical pain.
“Let go,” I murmured, before brushing another kiss across his chest, this time right above his left nipple. “I want this. I want you. Let go.”
He breathed out shakily, letting his hand fall to his side.
My fingers resumed their quest, undoing his belt and then finding the button and zipper of his pants, and all the while I kept my eyes locked in his. Only when I hooked my thumbs in his pants and boxer shorts did I let my gaze slide back down, just in time to see his cock spring free.
Oh, holy—!
“Wow.” I wasn’t aware I’d said anything out loud before his amused snort reached my ears, but I was too preoccupied with staring to be embarrassed.
Marcus was big. And hard.
My own body reacted with another rush of slick heat, my nipples hardening into aching points. No longer caring to take things slow I pressed my body in against his and wrapped my hand around his heavy cock. He hissed as my palm connected with the silky skin, and again when I closed my mouth around one of his nipples and gave it a teasing flick
with my tongue.
The heady scent of him hit my nostrils and filled my mouth. I wanted him so bad my body ached.
I wrapped my free hand around his back to caress the hard ropes of muscles there while I kissed and nipped my way down his torso, intent on my goal.
For every time my lips touched his skin or my hand squeezed his pulsing cock he groaned softly, and the sound of it only spurred me on. I enjoyed the salty taste of his skin and the way he began to shake as my questing tongue neared its target. He may have been a rich and powerful alpha male, but right then, I was the one with all the power.
I dropped to my knees in front of him and took a moment to enjoy the view.
His cock was so thick I couldn’t quite close my fingers around it, and long enough I’d be able to fit two hands along the shaft with ease. I briefly wondered if I’d even be able to take him in my mouth, but then decided there was only one way to find out.
When I swiped my tongue at the bloated, purple head, a full body shiver went through Marcus.
“Don’t,” he gasped.
I ignored him. The taste of his all-male musk ignited a shockwave of desire in my abdomen that spread down my thighs and made ripples of sharp need flood into my already tight clit. Groaning, I wrapped my lips around the tip of his cock and swirled my tongue to taste more of him. I just had time to be pleased with the discovery that yes, I could fit him in my mouth even if it would make my jaw ache within a minute, when a growl ripped from Marcus and his hands closed tightly around my arms.
I yelped when he roughly pulled me from my knees, lifting me up and swinging us both around until the kitchen island’s smooth surface connected with my backside.
“What—?” My questioning gasp broke off midway through the sentence when he grabbed my arse in both hands, pulled me to the edge of the island, and buried his head between my thighs.
I jolted at the unexpected touch of his tongue diving in between my lower lips, and then groaned unintelligibly as shocks of pleasure followed.
He licked me with broad strokes, teasing at my entrance until my readiness flooded his tongue before he switched focus to my aching clit.