“Dinner.” He smiled.
Marcus waved her toward the table, where he pulled out a chair for her, then settled into the seat across from her. Firelight danced on the silverware. She put her purse on the table, her head spinning from the sudden change of agenda.
“Yes, but why dinner?”
The words had barely left her mouth before a man appeared. He was dressed in formal clothes and pushed a kitchen cart. The wheels of the cart rolled over the tile and then the carpet, sending the four covered salvers rattling.
“Thank you, Ian,” Marcus said.
“You’re very welcome, sir.”
Ian swept aside the covers of the silver trays, revealing three sumptuous meals, steam rising from them to perfume the air with their incredible aromas: fettuccine pasta with red-salmon caviar, pancetta-wrapped asparagus with a drizzle of citrus sauce and a roasted lobster split in two and sprinkled with herbs and peppers.
“Which one would you like?” Marcus looked at her expectantly.
The choices all looked delicious and beautifully plated on square white dishes.
“I’ll have the asparagus,” she said.
“Good choice.” Marcus nodded toward the lobster for his own meal.
Ian deftly served their meals and poured white wine in their glasses before quietly withdrawing. As he wheeled the cart toward the door, Marcus called out softly, “Please see to it that we’re not disturbed, Ian. And you can take the rest of the night off.”
“I will, sir. Thank you.” He slipped quietly outside the room and closed the door behind him.
Diana draped the cloth napkin across her lap, mimicking Marcus’s relaxed posture. “So, you didn’t tell me why we’re having this dinner.”
“Does a man need a reason to invite a beautiful woman to share a meal with him?”
“In this instance, maybe. After all, you’re already hosting a party for me downstairs.” Diana refused to get sidetracked by the fact that he had called her beautiful. Again. But his words still warmed her. She picked up an asparagus spear and bit into it.
“What’s happening downstairs is for Building Bridges and all the children you help. This…” He gestured to the food and candles. “This is for you, the woman who has been occupying my thoughts and driving me crazy for weeks.” Marcus took a sip of his wine and held her eyes with his. “I want you, but I also want to get to know you.”
“Is this what you do to all the women you want? Throw money at them?”
For a moment, he looked surprised, unsettled. “I didn’t realize that’s what I’m doing.”
“It is,” she said. “Or it feels that way. This party…this party is a lot.” Diana smoothed a finger along the stem of her wineglass. “I don’t care about your money, Marcus.”
He put down his glass and looked at her with his gold eyes darkened and serious. “I never want you to feel like I’m throwing money at you as if you mean nothing to me.” But the frown came back. He pursed his lips.
“I’m just another woman in Miami. I doubt I mean very much to you.”
She said the words even as she hoped they weren’t true. She’d slept with him, taken shelter against a storm with him. Ever since that night, he’d eased himself into her consciousness, taking over minutes and sometimes hours of her day. He had his choice of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of women, and not simply because of his money. What could he want with a woman like Diana except another conquest?
She was falling for him despite her better judgment. Despite what her mother and brother said about him and his family. Despite his connection to Quentin Stanfield. She was torn between feeling like a traitor and wanting to follow her womanly desires.
Marcus shook his head, smiling. “You’re definitely not just another woman in Miami, Diana Hobbes. From the moment I met you, I knew that.”
Her face warmed. “You truly do have a silver tongue. Trish was right—you can have any woman in the world with just a few words.”
He laughed. “But I don’t want any woman in the world. I want you.”
She flushed again and looked down at her plate. Thin pancetta twirled around the bright green asparagus spears, all topped with a drizzled yellow sauce that tasted of oranges and mustard. “Don’t say things you don’t mean,” she said.
“I don’t.” Marcus took a bite of his lobster. “Look, Diana. I know things aren’t ideal between us. I can’t even honestly say what I want from you beyond a few days in my bed. But I do know that I want you. You’re on my mind, in my thoughts in a way that no other woman has ever been.” He drew a deep breath. “I’m too selfish not to pursue that.”
In the background, Johnny’s deep and haunting voice was mourning the loss of a romance. It felt like a premonition, but Diana felt lost in the golden gaze across from her. She wanted so much to follow after the pleasures his eyes and his smile promised. However, she had a lifetime of “buts” telling her that that was impossible.
“Marcus—”
He stood and held out a hand to her. “Dance with me.”
She hesitated. Then she rose and took his hand. Diana shivered with pleasure when he drew her into his arms to the strains of a new song, Johnny singing about New York with trumpets blaring, the song both moody and mellow.
“Thank you for this,” Marcus murmured into her hair.
Diana had always liked Johnny Hartman and his impossibly deep voice. Had loved him more than the better known Nat King Cole for the endless bass of his voice, the yearning in it. Tonight of all nights, his voice conveyed perfectly the sweetness she had inside her for Marcus. The pain of wanting him but also knowing that having him would hurt her family and her relationship with them.
But as he swept her around the room in his arms, with the candlelight flickering around them, the seductive trumpets pouring their music into the room, she allowed herself to be taken away, delighted and beguiled.
As she moved to the music with Marcus, a sound jarred her out of her trance. Her cell phone ringing. She looked over Marcus’s shoulder to the table where she had left her leather clutch. She could practically see the small device vibrating and ringing from the confines of her purse.
It could be Jason calling. Or her sister. Or her mother. But she didn’t move toward it. She only closed her eyes and immersed herself in the sounds of the music, in the feeling of Marcus’s arms around her.
Before, on the night of the storm, she’d allowed herself to be taken away by the fierceness of the weather pounding outside the doors of her office building. Her heart had raced with fear from the loud thunder and lightning flashes. That fear had led her firmly into the arms of temptation. It had been a head-spinning night. Giving in to lust, to the beautiful man who made her feel at once secure and strong, desirable and unique.
That night, she had been swept away. Tonight, she had her eyes open, and she wanted to see more.
“Make love to me,” she whispered.
His eyes smiled before his mouth did, taking her breath away.
She wasn’t sure if she kissed him or if he kissed her. All she knew was that their lips touched and the familiar feeling took her over once again. But this time it was hotter and harder than before. She trembled in his embrace and surrendered to her desire.
Chapter 18
Marcus swept Diana into his bedroom, sharing kisses with her the whole way, her beautiful mouth opening for him, inviting tenderness and heat. The windows were open to a view of the water, the Miami cityscape across the bay, lights in the skyscrapers, stars shimmering in the sky.
He turned on the bedroom light with a trembling hand, keeping the illumination dim. She made him weak with desire. He hadn’t touched or even thought of another woman since he’d met her, subconsciously saving all his passion for her. But it had been weeks since that night of the storm, days since the Carmichaels’ party when she’d opened up her vulnerable heart to him and he had had the privilege of giving her pleasure. It had been a long time, and he was more than ready for her.
&
nbsp; But tonight, she was in control. Even if she changed her mind and only kissed him good-night before heading back to the party, it would be her choice. Whatever she wanted, he would do.
Perhaps sensing her power, Diana kissed him deeply, then drew back to press her palms against his chest.
“I want to see you,” she murmured.
“Whatever you want.” Marcus didn’t know if he said the words or just thought them, but he wasted no time giving her what she wanted; he quickly undressed.
She sighed in appreciation at his nakedness, and he felt his body prepare for her even more. “I don’t think I got the chance to look at you properly before,” she said.
“It was dark,” he rasped as the lust pounded fiercely through him.
“And you’re still beautiful.” Her face was a study in wonder and desire.
She touched his bare chest, his hard belly, her fingers like silk on the dense and quivering muscles. He twitched when she went lower. Marcus held himself back from touching her, keeping his hands clenched at his sides as she explored him and saw who he was in the light.
“You’re not what I expected,” Diana said softly.
She took him in her hand, weighing his thickness in her palms. Marcus shuddered.
“You’re a good man. You’re kind and you’re generous,” she said. “And I want to know even more about you.”
Marcus winced as his conscience twisted. He’d meant to tell her about the Baltree Heights project tonight, but each time he thought of it, something happened to derail the possible conversation. He swallowed as her hands moved on him.
Diana changed her grip, grabbed the heavy length of his sex like a rope and tugged gently. She turned then, with her hand firm but excitingly soft around him, and led him across the wide bedroom. Moonlight shone on his bare skin. The whole world watched through the open windows. Diana’s bottom rocked seductively under the yellow dress as she guided him to the bed. She released him to quickly take off her clothes. Then, slowly and languorously, she unpinned her hair and allowed it to float around her face and shoulders.
Her beauty stole his breath, the confident sensuality of her as she stood basking in his admiration, hands on her hips but with something so ethereal and innocent about her at the same time. She was like no other woman in the world.
And he told her so, watching the faint color move up her throat and into her cheeks. She dipped her head for a moment, the heavy swing of hair hiding her face. Then she looked up at him again, her boldness restored. Diana sat on the edge of the bed and slowly opened her legs.
Her thighs were damp, her sex a juicy plum waiting for his mouth and his hands. Marcus trembled on the edge of implosion, knowing that if he slid into her now, he would not last long. He reached over to the bedside table for a condom and ripped open the package. He rolled the latex slowly down his long length while her eyes captured and held his.
“Marcus…”
He gave her the only answer he could. He gripped her hips, tilted her up to receive him and shoved slowly into her dripping heat. Marcus shuddered from the ecstasy of it, yearning to thrust into her again and again to reach the peak that was already so close. But he held himself back. He focused on her pleasure.
Diana’s eyelashes fluttered. Her fingers clenched in the sheets. Her hips moved under his, her body clasped him, sucking him in. She was so incredible with her head thrown back, her lovely breasts bare, chest heaving with her lust. She bit her lip.
“Please!” She gasped. “Please.”
Marcus moved inside her. At first he loved her deliberately, trying for slow and tender and what would make her feel best, but he quickly lost control as her breaths and her gasps filled the room. Her nails sank into his back, urging him on.
With a harsh groan, Marcus surrendered. He could only drive his hips home again and again as her wild cries filled the room like the notes of a song. Her heat gripped him and yanked him over the edge. It was humiliatingly quick.
He shuddered like a past-peak racehorse at the beginning of the race while she still writhed beneath him, searching for her satisfaction, her breath coming quickly, eyes blinking up at him in bewilderment as he stopped moving. Body still shuddering in the throes of his climax, he pulled out of her, dropped to his knees and sank his face between her thighs.
She gasped, her thighs like butterfly wings around his face, fanning wide to accommodate him. Her fingers clenched in his scalp. His tongue moved up and around the hard center of her pleasure. His name escaped from her lips. She sighed again and again, and the sun dug into his bare skin as tremors of sympathetic delight moved through him. She fell back into the bed, hips shoving up into his mouth, shuddering. And then the fluttering of her sex around his tongue as she achieved her climax. But he didn’t let her go. His hands tightened on her thighs, and he sucked that delicate nub of flesh deeply in his mouth.
She bucked against his face. “Marcus!”
She was soft and wet around his fingers, sucking them deeply inside her. He curved them up, bidding her to come to him, to come for him, the slick wetness of her sex sending a tingle through his body. His desire extended beyond his shaft, beyond anything he’d ever known, overcome by the need to please her and make her come and come and come. Marcus stroked that delicate place inside her.
She screamed softly, then not so softly. Her fingers dug hard in the flesh of his shoulders, then a smell of blood rose up as she scored him, and the pain flung him hard against her, fingers moving quickly. She burst wide open. Just for him. Her screams of pleasure rose above his head in a continuous wave of sound that made him go more and harder and longer.
“Marcus!”
She snaked her sex against his face, her innermost heart squeezing and clutching tight as she found her satisfaction again and again. He only stopped when the ache in his knees became too much. He rose from between her thighs to kiss her tenderly.
Diana was limp under him, her body slick with sweat, her heart thudding like a mad thing between them. “I don’t think I could even walk right now,” she breathed.
“Good.” He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her throat. “The last thing I want is for you to walk away from me.”
*
In the aftermath of their lovemaking, Marcus lay in bed with Diana resting her head against his chest. She breathed softly against him, misting his skin. He felt absolutely boneless with satisfaction, his body and soul truly content for the first time in a very long while. Maybe ever.
Diana’s fingers stirred on his chest a moment before she sat up and stretched. Her gaze moved slowly over his body, an indolent and thorough journey that made his muscles twitch and his sex begin to thicken against his thigh. He braced his hands against the bed, palms down, allowing her to look her fill.
The white sheets were like silk under his bare skin as her gaze stroked him to further hardness. Desire for her pooled in his middle, spreading out to every part of him. He curled his fingers in the sheets to stop himself from reaching for her. He tipped his head back into the pillows instead, released a soft breath and watched the plump softness of her lips.
“You look like you were born to this life,” she murmured, her hand only a few inches from his thigh. “Luxury suits you.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” He returned her gaze.
“I doubt that very much,” she said. “And I like your looks.”
He thought he detected a faint hint of color under her cheeks at that admission. “You’re an open book,” she said. “I like that about you. Rich playboy about town. Born into money. Happy to spend it. Good at making more of it.”
He felt that familiar mixture of pleasure and chagrin whenever someone mentioned him being born into the Stanfield family. He opened his mouth to offer the usual pithy and offhand remark about his family and certain things being learned not inherited. But…
“I was actually adopted,” he said.
She tilted her head down toward him, as if she didn’t quite trust her ears. “What?”
“I wasn’t born into this life,” he said. “I was accepted into it. Quentin Stanfield adopted me when I was four years old. He and his wife at the time were unable to have children, so they found me and took me home with them.” He said the words, grateful at how casual they sounded. It had taken him years to say them without a half apology that he wasn’t quite who the listener thought he was. To tell them he was worth the Stanfield name and worked twice as hard to make his father proud of the man he’d become. Proud that he had not made a mistake in taking Marcus in.
Diana blinked, her lips parting in surprise. “I had no idea.”
“Although it’s a matter of public record, not many people seem to know about it,” he said. “Or maybe they just don’t mention it out of politeness.” He shrugged, watching her face to see her reaction.
Would she pull away? Find him no longer worthy? He’d wrestled with those questions so often they’d become automatic when someone found out about his adoption.
“Oh, wow…” She tilted her head, smiling. “That’s a beautiful surprise,” she said.
“Is it?”
“Of course.” Her smile widened, showing teeth, the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She came close to him again, lay her head on his chest. “It means you’re even more complicated than I thought.”
He laughed softly, gathering her even closer to him.
“Don’t mistake previous orphanhood for depth, lovely Diana. The only thing that being the Stanfield chosen child has done is make me grateful for the life I have.” He threaded his fingers through her thick hair. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if I had never been adopted.” A lump formed in his throat as he vocalized the thought for the first time.
“There’s no need for you to wonder about that,” she said. “Your life happened the way it did, and that’s enough. All you can do is help make a better life for others when you can, which I know you do.”
How would she know anything about that? The angelic woman wanted to make him seem like one of her kind.
“Don’t try to make me a saint just because I wasn’t born into money, angel.”
Sultry Pleasure Page 13