by J. S. Scott
“What are you working on now?” he asked curiously.
I shrugged. “Nothing important. Mostly my personal journal.”
“And what do you journal about?” he pushed.
“Whatever I feel like writing,” I answered. “Right now, I’m writing down my bucket list.”
“Don’t you think you’re a little young for that?” he asked with a frown.
I shook my head. “Not at all. I thought I was going to die when I was a prisoner. It’s funny what happens when you feel that way, and how many silly little things you regret not doing.”
“Like what?” he asked huskily.
I’d gone to college right after high school, and then spent the majority of my adult life chasing stories in the Middle East. “Silly stuff,” I evaded.
“Tell me,” he insisted. “Maybe I’ve done some of them and I can tell you if doing any of those things are worth it.”
I evaluated my list. “I’ve never built a sandcastle on the beach. I’ve never actually spent any time on the ocean. It was one of the many things I thought about while I was a captive.”
“Never done that,” he replied. “Never spent much time on the beach. I spent plenty of time flying over them, though.”
“I’ve never been bungie jumping or zip-lining,” I continued.
“Me neither,” Marcus admitted. “Both of them are pretty dangerous—”
“Says the man who spies as a hobby,” I finished.
“Makes more sense than jumping from a bridge counting on a big rubber band to save my ass,” he grumbled.
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “I think I can cross out the ‘learn to cook’ item off the list. At least I have been trying.”
“What else?”
“I’ve never been drunk, not even a little,” I confessed. “I was too busy in college trying to do everything I could to try to get hired as a journalist when I graduated.”
“Done it. You aren’t missing anything,” Marcus rumbled. “Hangovers suck.”
“Do you think going into the hot springs naked qualifies as skinny dipping?” I asked, my eyes on my list.
“In the water. Outside. Naked. Yeah, I highly recommend that one, especially if you’re there with a beautiful redhead who makes you crazy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I was with a handsome, dark-haired man who drives me insane. Will that work?”
“For now,” he said agreeably. “Go ahead and remove that one. Tell me the rest.”
“They’re personal,” I said hesitantly.
“You don’t want to share?” he inquired, sounding slightly hurt.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But they’re kind of silly.”
“Read them,” he demanded.
“I’ve never kissed a man in the rain. I’ve never had a guy who really loved me. I’ve never been proposed to. And I’ve never had a child.”
“You want kids?” he asked in a low, inquisitive baritone.
I shrugged. “Someday. Yeah. I never really thought about it until I got kidnapped. I guess those are the things you think about when you know your life might be over so early. Did I make the right choice? Did I put enough effort into relationships? Did I love my family and friends enough?”
Marcus leaned back in his leather chair, his entire attention on me. His eyes were intense, as though he was thinking about what I said.
“I can’t say I know how you feel,” he finally admitted. “But I understand reconsidering some of your choices in life.”
“Aren’t you doing exactly what you want to do?” I asked with surprise.
“Not always. I’m not as close to my family as I’d like to be, and I have no idea what I would have done for a career if I’d felt I had a choice.”
“You didn’t want to run your father’s conglomerate?”
He shrugged. “I never thought about it. I was the oldest, and our father died young. He was killed in a terrorist attack—in the wrong place at the wrong time in the Middle East.”
My heart clenched. No wonder he wanted to keep Americans safe. His own father had been a victim of unstable circumstances in a foreign country.
My mother and Marcus’s had been friends. I knew his father had died, but I’d been too young to understand where or how it had happened back then.
Marcus continued, “As far as running Dad’s conglomerate…I guess it was always assumed that I would. I was groomed for it, and it never occurred to me to argue. I know my mother would have wanted me to do whatever made me happy, but there wasn’t really anything else I wanted to do.”
“So you don’t regret doing it?”
“I don’t. I’ve become damn good at what I do. But I do regret the distance it’s caused with my family. Hell, I don’t even connect well with my own twin anymore. I told myself that I was doing it to protect them in case somebody found out about the government work I was doing, but I think I pretty much isolated myself because I knew I’d miss them if I didn’t.”
“Does that work?” I asked.
“Not really. It just makes the empty feeling easier to handle.”
“Traveling around the world is hard,” I commiserated. “Sometimes I’d be gone for months at a time on assignment. I missed my family a lot.”
Marcus shrugged as he replied, “It was great when I was fresh out of college. But just like you, I wonder what I missed by not being here at home.”
“No long-term relationships?” I asked. I couldn’t even remember Marcus being linked with any one female other than my sister. That hadn’t exactly been long-term, and that incident—as I now knew—had been a case of mistaken identity.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Because you were traveling,” I commiserated.
“I don’t think that was the problem, actually,” he corrected.
“Then what was it?”
He shot me a sharp look and then glanced back at his computer again. Still staring at the screen, he answered, “I guess I just never met anybody worth bothering to stay at home for until now.”
Marcus
It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was completely fucked—I just didn’t want to admit it.
I was hiking with Dani the day after she’d spilled some of her list to me, suddenly realizing that I didn’t miss being on an airplane or in a foreign country at all. It was the first time I’d actually been stateside for more than a few days, and I wasn’t the least bit edgy or eager to get back on my private jet and fly away.
I held her hand tightly as we both navigated down a rocky incline, worried as hell that something would happen to her. Jesus! I think I’d be fucking upset if she so much as broke a damn fingernail—not that she had long nails to break.
After everything she’d been through, all I wanted to do was protect her, make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again. I still had nightmares about seeing her right after her brutal captivity, and it wasn’t something I wanted to see ever again. Hell, I didn’t want to see her unhappy in any way.
Maybe she didn’t see herself as strong, but she was one of the gutsiest women I knew. Honestly, she probably should have died while she had been held captive, but she’d pulled through it, and was still willing to risk her ass again trying to take down a man who was hurting other people. Danica’s capacity to care about someone other than herself was probably both a curse and a blessing. Sometimes I almost wished she’d be more selfish, but then she wouldn’t be Dani.
“I’m okay, Marcus,” she said breathlessly beside me. We’d reached the bottom of the rocky area and had our feet on solid ground. “You can stop squeezing my hand. I’m not going to fall.”
I released the pressure on her fingers, not even realizing I was holding them hard enough to cut off her blood supply. “Sorry,” I rumbled. “I wanted you to have support if you fell.”
“I won’t fall,” she promised, shooting me a happy, glowing smile as we trekked along beside each other.
Her grin made me feel like somebody had punched me in
the gut. That’s how I knew I was screwed. All she had to do was show any sign that she was happy and it had me thinking about how I was ever going to let her go.
Fuck that! She’s not going anywhere!
The woman needed somebody to keep her out of trouble, and I was more than willing to volunteer for the job.
We were so much alike, yet so damn different. Neither one of us had ever put down permanent roots and let them grow. What I’d told her yesterday was the truth. I hadn’t ever found anybody who made me want to slow down traveling.
Until her.
Until now.
Her sadness over things she might have missed if she actually had died made me want to help her experience every one of those items on her list. Sadly, I wasn’t much help in telling her what was worth missing and what wasn’t. My life had been as career-focused as hers.
Every moment I’d spent with her had been worth whatever I’d missed in my business life. I’d been overseeing my responsibilities from home, and very few things had needed my personal attention. My conglomerate had so much upper and middle management that they didn’t constantly need me anymore. Everything ran just fine without me racing all over the planet.
Problem was, now that I’d experienced how good it felt to start being part of my family again, and I had Dani with me, I was afraid I’d grow to like the contentment way too much.
I was a loner.
I never stayed in one place for very long.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure what I’d do with myself if I wasn’t always on the go.
Right now, my focus was on getting Dani to relax and just be happy. She’d jumped out of one bad situation and into the next way too fast. There had been little time for her to recover, and it didn’t surprise me that she’d experienced a panic attack after going so long without them.
I might not be the perfect guy to teach her how to relax. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Calm and Happy. But I knew one thing…nobody cared about her well-being more than I did.
“Are you okay?” Dani asked quietly.
I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“You were frowning,” she pointed out. “And you looked like you were deep in thought.”
I shook my head. “Nothing important.”
Just me making a life plan for you in my mind!
Jesus! She was a grown adult. It was none of my business what she did in the future. We’d helped each other achieve a common goal: getting Becker put away for good.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I’d stopped seeing her as just a cooperative journalist. Hell, I probably had never looked at her as just a reporter. There had never been a day when I hadn’t wanted to nail her, and today was no exception. But there was a hell of a lot more than just sex between the two of us. We’d established a kind of intimacy that I’d never experienced with a woman before.
That was how I’d come to the conclusion that I was downright screwed, and I wasn’t sure that I cared.
Being with her felt too damn good to worry about how involved I was becoming. But I probably knew, deep down inside, that I might end up regretting it. However, even knowing that I might end up completely alone and pissed off wasn’t enough to deter me.
“It’s raining,” I informed her, suddenly feeling the light sprinkle that may or may not have been falling for a while.
“It feels good,” she answered. “It was getting hot.”
We were both dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I’d donned a pair of underused hiking boots while Dani had slipped on sneakers for our jaunt.
“At least it’s not storming,” I replied. There was no thunder or lightning, and Dani was right. It had been getting warm.
“We’re almost home, right?” she asked curiously, not sounding the least bit concerned.
“Almost,” I agreed. I stopped in the woods, causing her to halt with me. “But it reminds me of something. It’s on your list.”
She looked confused for a moment, her puzzled expression and questioning eyes looking for clarification.
I nudged her backward until her body came into contact with the trunk of an enormous pine tree.
“Time for that kiss in the rain,” I explained in a husky voice. “It was on your wish list of things you’d never done.”
God, I loved the way she smiled and tilted her face up to absorb the raindrops falling from the sky before replying, “Yes, it is,” she answered. “An experience you said you didn’t know about yourself.”
I shrugged. What in the hell did I know about romance? I had quick fucks. I didn’t get emotionally involved. “It could be interesting.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck. “We could try it,” she told me suggestively.
When she swiped a bead of rain from her lips with the tip of her tongue, I nearly lost it. My cock strained against the denim material of my jeans as I grew transfixed by a pair of tempting lips that I couldn’t resist.
“Make it happen,” I insisted, bracing my hands on the massive tree trunk, one on each side of her head.
I wanted her to initiate the embrace. I had no fucking idea what I’d do if she didn’t because there was no way I was turning back now.
I needed her too damn much.
Watching her eyes, I could almost see her brain working as she contemplated exactly what to do.
Kiss me, dammit!
For one long moment, I waited for her to act, my heart nearly galloping out of my chest as we simply stared at each other, both of us wanting the same damn thing.
Finally, she threaded her hands into my damp hair and pulled my head down.
Desperate, I met her halfway.
Dani
Our lips met in a frenzied madness that I’d come to expect from Marcus, but I certainly hadn’t gotten used to the emotions.
As usual, he took control almost immediately, and I opened for him with a reckless abandon that I couldn’t deny.
Marcus was my weakness; the way he devoured me like I was the only woman in the world he wanted was way too tempting for me.
I moaned as his tongue swept into my mouth with a demanding strength that overpowered my senses.
I wanted more.
I needed more.
I was beginning to crave Marcus’s touch in any way I could get it.
My fingers tightened on his hair, and I pressed my body against his, wanting to feel his hard body against mine. It was an obsession that I hadn’t been able to tame. One that I didn’t want to restrain because I knew he felt it every bit as much as I did.
By the time he lifted his head, I was frenzied. “Marcus,” I murmured against his shoulder, feeling so vulnerable that I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You need me,” he growled, lifting my head up so I could see the intense expression on his face. “Just like I need you. We both feel it, Dani. It’s not just you.”
It was remarkable how he could put into words exactly what I was thinking, and then put me at ease with those feelings by confessing that he felt the same way. I wasn’t comfortable with my emotions being so exposed, but knowing he felt the same primal, out-of-control instincts made it easier to handle.
“I know,” I said in a muffled voice as I buried my head against his neck.
I did comprehend that it wasn’t just me, but it felt better to hear him say it.
I was disappointed when he stepped back, but my displeasure quickly turned to astonishment as he stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it to the ground. “What are you doing?”
He grinned at me, a mischievous expression that I was starting to adore. Maybe because I was pretty certain Marcus didn’t show this side of himself often.
“Getting naked,” he explained.
“Here?” I squeaked.
“Right here. Right now,” he confirmed as he started to lift my T-shirt.
“We’re outside in the rain,” I reminded him.
“I know.” He tugged on my damp shirt.
I lifted my arms and let him strip
the T-shirt off. It might be raining, but it was still summer, and it was plenty warm.
“What if somebody comes?” I asked.
“Somebody is going to come,” he answered nonchalantly as he continued to strip off my garments. “Hopefully both of us,” he added.
I actually giggled as I watched him fumble with my sneakers, and I finally took pity on him by just slipping them off, and then stepped out of my jeans. “Feeling daring?” I asked as I used his shoulder to balance myself.
God, I loved this audacious side of him, his quiet confidence that he could do anything he wanted.
“Not really,” he answered as he set my clothing aside on the ground once I was naked. “We’re on my property. And I know that adding a little bit of intrigue gets you off.”
His fingers trailed up my thighs, and I gasped, feeling something akin to an electric jolt surge through my body. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, but it was arousing. “How do you know that?” I asked, already panting as his warm breath hit my naked pussy.
“Because I brought you to orgasm in a bathroom with somebody just barely out of sight,” he explained with infuriating calmness.
“I was—” My voice cut out, and I completely forgot about protesting as Marcus’s hands landed on my ass and his tongue speared through the pink flesh that was right in front of his face.
“Oh, God,” I moaned, and then drew a sharp breath as that slick mouth started to mercilessly devour me.
I plunged my fingers into his wet hair, needing some kind of balance and sanity where there was none. I came undone as Marcus meticulously started his sensual campaign to drive me insane.
He drew my leg over his shoulder, forcing me to use the tree to keep myself upright, and to grip his scalp harder.
When Marcus demanded, I was nearly helpless not to respond.
He delved deeper into my pussy, his mouth, tongue, and nose all stimulating my sensitized flesh. His tongue lashed at my clit, and I trembled with need. My nude body was getting pelted by rain, and the most beautiful man on the planet was enthusiastically consuming my pussy like it was the only thing he needed for sustenance. It was the most erotic sensation I’d ever experienced.