Eli nudged Jay from where they sat next to each other and gestured across the room to Marcus.
“Oh shit,” Jay muttered and grinned at Eli. Their boy was toast. M.U.R.D.E.R she wrote. One look at his face and they knew, whatever had been stopping him from making her his, that was in the past now. Marcus’s face was dark and somber, and almost predatory.
Just when I think I got it under control
There’s that sun
on your eyelashes.
There’s your arm up
against mine.
She was getting breathier and harsher at the same time and Marcus couldn’t breathe. He thought he’d never breathe again, most likely.
What can I say it’s
You again.
It’s you again?
Oh, baby, it’s you again.
And what can I do
but just lose it for you, again.
She sang the last, addictive notes and the entire group went straight to their feet. Mari and Jay kissed the breath out of one another, because it was, indeed, the perfect song for them. They were two people who’d found one another over and over.
And from the looks of it, so were Marcus and Iris.
She finally opened her eyes again and looked out at the group cheering for her. Her gaze was sucked directly into the corner where Marcus stood, his arms crossed over his chest and an expression on his face that made her insides turn to soup.
Oh god. The look was so raw and so was the truth. There was no fighting it. None at all. Iris got the sudden, distinct impression that she was plummeting down a dark hole that she’d never be able to find her way out of.
She was in love with him. Not even a kiss yet and she’d already given it all up for this man. The part of her that had been hurt so badly by Jet made one last, frantic grab for her heart, but it missed. And the dang thing just floated right out of her chest. She’d tried so hard to fight it. She hadn’t let herself be close to him in any of the ways that her body screamed for her to. And in the end it hadn’t mattered. She loved him anyways.
It had taken singing a song she’d written for him to figure it out. But there it was. This wasn’t a crush. This was full on. This was real deal. This was love.
She wanted to look away from him, but she couldn’t. All she could do was absently flip the keyboard off and sort of float right over to him where he stood just a touch away from the rest of the group.
Each second felt like a lifetime, each step a mile. And when she was within reaching distance, his hands landed on her shoulders, tugged her straight to him. Their chests smashed together as he flattened his hands on her back.
That action alone confirmed it. He must know that the song was about him. She inwardly winced. What did he think? Was it possible that he knew the rest too? Was she as obvious about her love for him as Mari and Tia were with their love for their men? Part of her hoped that she was. Hiding it was exhausting and unrewarding and she realized that she was done with it. She loved him. The damage was done. All that was left was to show him. As many times as he’d let her.
His hands were tight on her shoulders still as he stared down into her face. “Are you sober?” he asked.
She pulled back, a little surprised. “I told you I stopped drinking at dinner.”
“Are. You. Sober. Stone cold sober.” Each word was punctuated with a feral, vibrating urgency, like everything inside of him balanced on the edge of what she was about to say.
In that case, she considered her words carefully.
“Almost?”
Something like frustration flicked over his face, although Iris was certain that it wasn’t frustration for her. “Fine. We’ll dance first. Until you’re completely sober.”
He turned and took her by the hand, tugging her toward the door of the karaoke room and toward the dance floor.
“First?” Iris asked. “What comes second?”
He stopped still and turned to face her again. For only the second time, he took her by the chin, held her in place. “Second, I’m going to take you back to the hotel room and do something that I’ve been trying to talk myself out of for weeks.”
Iris was aware that her heart had stopped, but she could barely bring herself to care. If this was how she was going to die, death by sexy promises, she’d take it. Marcus didn’t wait for her reaction, he simply turned back and tugged her out of the room.
“Oh, shit!” Eli and Jay said in unison as they turned to face one another in stunned glee.
“What?” Tia asked, squinting at them through the dim lighting.
“It’s going down,” Eli grinned and tangled his hands up with Tia’s.
“What is?” Mari asked, having missed the whole exchange.
“Marcus is taking Irie out onto the dance floor,” Jay explained. “And he’s literally never struck out after he’s danced with a woman. It means he’s definitely made up his mind about what to do.”
“You mean I finally get to see Marcus’s dance floor repertoire?” Mari smacked her hands together. Before she and Jay had gotten married, he’d taken every opportunity to shield her from his friend’s dancing skills.
Tia squinted into her memory. “I definitely remember him being a good dancer when we were in high school. But I haven’t seen him dance as an adult.”
“Well,” Eli said, tugging his girl along after him. “Let’s get some front row seats then. Dad, Kat, you guys might not want to see this.”
In fact, Ryan and Kat had better things to do, and bid the group goodnight, strolling out of the club, both of them relieved they’d been spared another hour of karaoke.
Iris could not believe this was her life. She was on the run from a faction of the mob, in the Bahamas with a bunch of new friends, and she was currently being seduced on the dance floor by the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on.
She’d looked around a minute ago and seen that Jay and Mari and Eli and Tia were on the dance floor as well. And all of them were pretty good dancers. Jay was fluid and self assured. Eli was confident and very cute. But Marcus? Marcus was absolutely lethal.
The man danced like he’d been born to do it. His hips and shoulders, his chin and hands, his feet…Jesus. All of him moved with such sexy, attractive grace. But it was more than grace. He moved with a knowledge, a deep understanding of how two bodies were supposed to touch one another. Not only was his gorgeous physique on full display, he danced in such a way that Iris knew that it was only on display for her.
Sure, other women could look, and they were, but it didn’t matter at all to Marcus. His eyes were on Iris and Iris alone, dead focused.
She thanked God that she was a good dancer as well. She had rhythm and all the requisite lady parts to be aesthetically pleasing on the dance floor. She’d never worried about it or given it much thought. It was just something that was. Dancing with Marcus though? He elevated her to a whole other level. He was patient but inexorable, there was no arguing with the way he moved his body against hers. There was no arguing with that look in his eyes. If his fingertips brushed her knee, she swung it open for him. If his palm pressed into her stomach, she leaned her weight back into his body. He guided her. Simple as that. They moved as one unit.
At all times he had at least one body part pressed into her. His hands on her hips showed her exactly what to do next. He backed her ass into his front, before dipping around to bring himself eye level with her chest. He rose up to full height, one hand firmly laced into her hair and tugged her forward. There was no fighting it. There wasn’t a world where she ever would have wanted to.
“Good god!” Mari crowed as she and Tia watched from the bar. Their men had gone to the bathroom so the two women took the moment to watch Marcus dance.
“Yeah,” Tia muttered. “Yeah wow.”
“That’s… that’s—I’ve never seen anything like that!” Mari tugged a hand through her hair and attempted to close her mouth, but found she couldn’t.
Both women couldn’t be happier with the
man they were with. But for one, brief second, they were both extremely relieved that they’d never run into Marcus on a dance floor before they were with their men. Because, that? That right there on the dance floor? That was something that you took home with you. No questions.
And neither of them would have wanted to explain that to their men.
So they took some great joy in just watching Marcus put the absolute moves on Irie on the dance floor. He moved with an animal surety, a deep confidence. Every step was laced with one thing and one thing only. Sex. This was a man who knew what he was doing. And from the looks of things, he was about to do that thing to Irie.
Mari laughed as a hand closed over her eyes. She’d know that hand anywhere. “Have some decency woman, this is our wedding reception, for god sakes,” Jay’s voice said in her ear. “I can’t have you lusting after my best friend.”
“I wasn’t lusting. I was observing!” she insisted.
Eli laughed and tugged Tia into his chest, thereby cutting off her view of Marcus dancing. “Marcus has stolen enough girls out from under me and Jay by pulling shit just like that,” he gestured over his shoulder with a jutting thumb. “We have a right to be a little touchy.”
“I thought you guys had some sort of double dipping rule?” Tia asked. And even knowing her as well as he did, it was still a shock to Eli to hear such words come out of prim and proper Dr. Camellia’s mouth.
Jay laughed. “We do. But we also have a whoever gets there first rule.”
“And if there is a dance floor handy, Marcus gets there first,” Eli scowled.
Tia and Mari grinned at one another. Neither of them had any reason to question their men’s moves. They’d worked on the two women present, after all. But it was still sort of fun to hear about them striking out. And both women had sort of a soft spot for Marcus. He’d been alone for so long, and so palpably lonely. They rooted for him.
On the dance floor, the song turned from poppy and upbeat to grimy and filled with bass. Perfect. They’d been dancing for damn near a half an hour and Marcus was hoping against hope that Iris was close to sober. He could tell that she was close to other things, that was for sure. Her cheeks were flushed as her ice blue eyes tracked his every movement. Her lips were parted and there was no way to misinterpret that expression on her face. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Good. That was how he wanted it. He wanted her literally panting for him. His plan was to keep a tight leash on himself tonight. He needed to maintain total control, lest he give her the intense stuff and freak her out. But just in case he slipped up, it would be better if she was turned on beyond belief.
The song ground out through the club and the dance floor was responding. Bodies everywhere were pressing and sliding. Mouths were open and taking from each other. Marcus gripped Iris’s hips and jammed her ass against his front, letting her feel what her closeness was doing to him. She turned her face up toward his and he could taste her on the air. She was so close that the tips of their noses touched. But he didn’t kiss her. Not yet. He refused for their first kiss to be in some sweaty club.
She opened her mouth to say something. But then pink stained her cheeks and she clapped her mouth shut.
“Say it, Iris. Whatever you were going to.”
She pulled her lip between her teeth, looking at him over her shoulder as he firmly pressed a hand into her back, bending her forward to keep dancing on her. He swung her back up as she gasped.
“Don’t keep it from me,” he growled into her ear as his hand flattened against her stomach, making her ride the beat. And him. “Don’t keep anything from me. Give it up.”
Iris gasped and blushed even further at the double entendre of his words. Her desire for him flung aside any insecurities she might regularly be feeling. He was making it clear, in a hundred different ways, how badly he wanted her.
She craned her head and grabbed his eyes with hers. “I’m sober now.”
He let the words sink in for all of one second before he twirled her toward the door of the club and charged across the dance floor, leading her with one hand on the small of her back towards the exit.
“We didn’t say goodbye!” Iris couldn’t help but think of how rude they were being to his friends.
“I don’t give a shit,” he growled as they burst out onto the street. He tugged her in the direction of the hotel. “You can say bye when you see them in the morning.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Iris insisted as she stumbled along behind him, attempting to keep pace with his long legs.
He stopped still and she ran right into him. Marcus grabbed her by the backs of her thighs and lifted her right up like she didn’t weigh more than 20 pounds. He pressed her back into the storefront behind her. “You want to go back to that club, say goodbye to them and explain that we have to leave because we’re about to go up to our hotel room and lose our minds on one another?”
Well. When he put it like that. Iris shook her head. “Let’s go.”
He dropped her back to the ground, grabbed her hand and set off at a light jog. Adrenaline and lust had her easily keeping pace with him. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She loved this man and she was about to make love with him. Thank the heavens.
Marcus shoved his way through the lobby of the hotel and onto the elevator before Iris had time to process where they even were.
“No,” Marcus said, quite rudely, to an older couple who were about to enter the elevator along with them. They stepped right back off, shooting Marcus dirty looks.
“Marcus!” Iris yelped as the doors closed and he immediately started backing her up into a corner. “That was so rude.”
“I don’t give a shit,” he said again. “The only thing I care about is you.” His eyes dropped to her lips and he planted his hands on either side of her, caging her in. She was surrounded by him. She could see nothing else, feel nothing else, smell nothing else. “I can’t resist you anymore. Not after hearing you sing. I already spent way too much time thinking about your mouth. And now I have to add your voice into the equation.”
“You think about my mouth?” she asked in a whisper.
He laughed humorlessly. “I dream about your mouth.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
They arrived at the hotel room and Iris stumbled back from him as the door clicked closed behind him, trapping them inside together.
He kept his eyes on hers as he unbuttoned the buttons at his wrists and then started on his shirt. “Listen to me, Iris. I have to make something very, very clear.”
He yanked his shirt off and tossed it to one side. Iris couldn’t breathe. This was all happening so fast, but if it slowed down any, she thought she’d scream with frustration.
He toed out of one shoe and then the other. Slicked his belt off and tossed it aside. He stood in just his dark jeans, moonlight slanting across his face.
“You want something tonight, you need something, you ask me for it. And I’ll give it to you. Every time. You understand?” He took a step toward her. “No matter what it is. You want more? Done. You want less? Done. You want time or speed or for me to hold you? Done. Ask me and I’ll give it to you. There is nothing,” he swiped one hand through the air. “Literally nothing you could do wrong tonight.”
His words loosened a knot that she hadn’t realized had tightened in her gut. Somewhere in her, she knew how much more experienced he was than she. She hadn’t realized how much that had been worrying her until his words set all those worries free. He’d given her a roadmap for how to proceed as well as reassured her that she was everything he wanted. What more could she ask for.
All she had to do was ask herself what she wanted, and then ask him to give it to her. The first thing was easy. So easy. “Will you kiss me?”
His nostrils flared at her words as he took another step toward her. “You deserve a romantic kiss, this first one with me,” he growled. “Not some prelude to sex in a dark hotel room.” His eyes darkened with someth
ing like guilt and for one second, Iris was terrified that he was about to call everything off.
But then his gaze flicked over her shoulder, toward the small balcony at the other end of the room. He grabbed her hand and tugged her out the sliding glass door. They were ten stories up from the beach and the ocean crashed below them.
Marcus sat himself down in one of the deck chairs and immediately tugged her into his lap. Iris gasped, almost breathlessly, at the feel of him under her. All the snuggling they’d done and she’d never actually sat in his lap.
“Hear that?” he asked her. “The waves?” One of his arms circled her waist and the other hand laced into her hair.
She nodded, completely hypnotized by him.
“Close your eyes,” he told her. And she did, immediately. She trusted him one hundred percent to take her where she needed to go. “Listen to the ocean. Pretend we’re at the beach house.”
And instantly, Iris’s mind took her there. Straight to the kitchen of the beach house, where you could hear the ocean so well. Where he’d almost kissed her for the first time on the kitchen counter.
“We’re sitting at the table,” she whispered to him. “In your chair. Where you’d drink your coffee in the mornings.”
Her eyes were still closed but she could feel him grin. “In the kitchen. Good. That’s where I should have kissed you for the first time. Every single time I saw you in the kitchen, I wanted to kiss you.”
“Really?” she whispered.
“Yes," he answered simply. “I should have kissed you in the music room too. Every time I watched you at your piano, I should have walked over and kissed a moan right out of you.”
Her lips parted and she moaned then, just from his words. He didn’t shift his grip at all. He just held her captive with his hands. Just as he was doing with his voice.
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