God help her, she wanted this. She wanted him. But what would she become if she ignored what he had done?
“Marcus…” She shook her head. “Please get up.”
He stayed at her feet. “You can have the land where the center is. I’ve bought it back from my father. I won’t undo my plans for the community, but you can stay in the building rent free. Even if you don’t come back to me, you can have it. On my life, I never meant for any of this to hurt you.”
“But I was hurt,” she said, her chin wobbling with the onset of tears.
But those hurts were melting away until all she could feel was the love running through her, overflowing her eyes and running down her face. Her knees buckled until she was on the ground with him, their bodies close, his pain a mirror of hers.
“Do you forgive me?”
“I—” She shook her head, trying to clear her mind and separate the euphoria of seeing him from the agony of the past two months.
Diana swallowed thickly as she choked on the betrayal she had felt when he kept the secret of Baltree Heights from her. When she had trusted him so implicitly. When she was willing to risk her family’s anger and disappointment to be with him.
She clawed at her own throat. “I’m not sure if I can trust you again,” she finally said. “My mother. My brother. It was like you proved them right. And I felt like a fool for being taken in by you like that.”
“Diana, you have no idea how much I regret what happened. I’m so damn sorry.” Marcus gripped her waist, his gold eyes dark and tortured. “I’ll do anything to fix it. I’ll talk with Jason and your mother. I’ll take a polygraph.” His hands tightened even more in desperation. “Whatever you or they need me to do, I will do it. I was being stupid before. Just say you’ll forgive me and come back into my life.”
Even more tears burned Diana’s eyes at his passionate words. How could she say no to him? How could she say no to their love?
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do. I will.” Because the pain of the past few weeks without him was something she never wanted to feel again.
“Thank God!” He hugged her close, and she fell into his arms.
He pressed kisses to her cheeks, her forehead, her mouth. He tasted like her tears. His body was firm and warm and familiar and so deeply missed. Diana opened her mouth under his, pulling his beloved flavor into her, savoring him with her tongue, her hands pressed against his belly through the vest and shirt.
The heat of the familiar desire flooded her and she sighed, fingers sinking deeply into the cotton over his muscled stomach. She vaguely heard the whisper of motion, the sliding of a heavy door over gliders. Someone cleared their throat.
She and Marcus pulled away from each other to see Trish in the balcony’s doorway. “I think you better take the lovefest someplace more private, unless you want to give us all a show.” Trish grinned at them, then disappeared back inside.
Embarrassment flooded Diana’s cheeks, and she buried her face in Marcus’s chest in mortification. “Oh, my God!” Caught up in the feeling of rightness that had taken her over, she’d completely forgotten about their audience. Marcus’s laughter vibrated under her cheek.
He touched the back of her neck, his laughter fading. “I don’t care who’s watching, as long as you’re with me.”
Diana smiled widely and lifted her face to look at him.
“You want to get out of here, love?” His voice was low with sensual promise.
She nodded. His lips touched her forehead and he pulled away, then stood. Then he held out his hand to help her to her feet. Diana took it and rose up into his arms, tumbling once and always into the warmth of his smile.
Epilogue
“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” Seven raised a teasing eyebrow as he walked into the church’s vestry that smelled of candle wax and cut flowers.
Marcus wasn’t in the mood for teasing. He was nervous as hell. He adjusted his black silk tie one last time in the mirror before turning to look at his best man. Seven was more than presentable in his tailored black suit with its lavender silk tie the same shade as the bridesmaids’ dresses.
“Of course I’m ready,” he said.
But he couldn’t deny the tremor in his hands. He’d never been so nervous about anything in his life. Business deals. Confronting his father about his duplicity. Losing his virginity. None of those things had prepared him for this feeling that was part vulnerability, part pride, part “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Diana, the woman he loved, was waiting somewhere out there for him in the Catholic church his family had worshipped in for generations. It was a big day for them both—a proud day. There was only one thing threatening to mess it up.
“Is her mother here yet?” He cracked his knuckles, blowing out a steadying breath.
Seven shook his head and looked at his watch. “But we don’t start the music for another fifteen minutes or so.”
Marcus winced. Although they had had their own share of problems, it meant a lot to Diana that her mother finally supported the relationship she had with Marcus. It also meant a lot to his fiancée that her mother was there at the wedding.
Marcus’s own mother got along so well with Diana that the two of them, along with Trish, had tackled the details of the wedding like the most important mission of their lives. Cheryl Hobbes-Freeman had shown little interest in being part of the planning, had even declined being in the wedding party, but she said she would be there in the audience to support her daughter.
Everyone was under the impression that she was coming, but fifteen minutes until the start of the ceremony, there was still no sign of her. Frowning, Marcus sent Trish a quick text and hoped that Diana’s best friend would come through.
“We’ve all done what we can.” Marcus rolled his shoulders to loosen them up. He was sweating. His pulse was doing the tango in his throat. In the mirror, he managed to look calm, even like bridegroom material in the three-piece midnight-black suit. He touched the yellow rosebud in his lapel and thought of Diana. He was ready. “Let’s go.”
Just then, a brisk knock sounded. The door opened. “You’re not trying to run out on my sister, are you?”
Jason stood in the doorway dressed in his groomsman’s suit, his quick gaze taking in the contents of the vestry and the two men who stood together in front of the mirror. The room looked as if a small hurricane had torn though it, a result of Marcus’s earlier nervousness after his father left to make sure everything was running smoothly downstairs in the church.
He and Quentin Stanfield were still having a few problems, fallout from what his father had tried to do with the Baltree Heights property. But in the end, Quentin was his father and had come to him with congratulations, a ridiculously expensive gift for the bride and the insistence on paying for every bit of the wedding.
Diana had been reluctant to accept his (to her) suspicious generosity, and Marcus respected whatever choice she made regarding his father. But Quentin and Diana had had a private conversation a few days before the wedding that had seemingly settled everything between them. Marcus hadn’t asked about the details of the conversation. It was enough that Diana was content. He shook himself back to the present.
“Running is not something I do,” Marcus said in response to Jason’s earlier comment. “I’m ready for this.”
The younger man tightened his jaw and gave a look that Marcus was coming to learn was reluctant respect. “Let’s go, then. It’s almost showtime.”
With Seven at his side, Marcus turned to leave the vestry when Jason stopped short. “What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise. “Marcus is right behind me.”
Marcus stepped from behind the younger man to see a flash of white silk chiffon disappear into a nearby doorway. He heard Diana’s low voice.
“Mother isn’t here.” A hint of her rosemary perfume reached him, making him smile.
“You know it’s bad luck to see the groom before the wedding,” Jason sai
d. “And you two need all the luck you can get.”
His rough protection of Diana, something that had grated on Marcus’s nerves in the beginning, actually warmed him now. The boy was just trying to look after his sister, since there had been no one else to do it for so long. But now Marcus was here, too.
“I don’t believe in luck,” Marcus said. But he stayed behind Jason anyway, knowing that despite whatever had brought Diana upstairs to seek him out, she did believe in that small tradition. He was grateful when Seven stepped up to also block his view. Marcus called out to Diana. “Don’t worry, love. Your mother will be here soon.”
Her soft voice, threaded with anxiety, floated to him through the hallway. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. I won’t allow anything to ruin this day for you.”
That hint of white chiffon in the hallway shifted. He could practically hear her mind working, worrying and planning her next move. He shook his head and smiled. Brilliant women and their machinations. “Go get ready for your wedding, Ms. Hobbes. It’s almost time for you to make your entrance.” And it was time for him to be standing next to the priest, pledging his life to her. “Just for you, everything will be perfect.”
After a moment, he heard her dress rustling again. Then a sigh. “Okay. Turn around,” she said.
Marcus grinned and turned his back to her.
“Are you looking?” Her voice quavered.
Jason made a disgusted noise.
“Not at all.”
Marcus closed his eyes when he heard her dress brushing the ground as she dashed through the hallway, her footsteps quiet as if she wasn’t wearing any shoes. He breathed in the faint scent of her perfume again, hints of rosemary and honey, a new body oil she’d started wearing in the past six months. It did something to him every morning to wake up to the sweet and lingering smell of her in his sheets and pillows long after she’d gone.
“Okay. She left.” Jason’s dress shoes rapped against the stone floors as he started off after his sister.
Seven patted his back once. An urgent gesture. “Let’s go.”
Marcus didn’t need to be told twice. As they got to the top of the stairs, his cell phone chirped with a new message. He looked down at it and smiled in satisfaction. Today was definitely going to be a good day. He quickened his footsteps.
Downstairs in the church, the groomsmen were greeting the last of the guests and making sure that they got to the correct side of the aisle, to the correct chair, and, in the case of a few of the elderly attendants, that they were at the correct church.
The building was packed with people from both families, friends, acquaintances and a few reporters granted access to the wedding. At first, Marcus had declined all media requests, but Trish had teased him about being too damn selfish, telling him that maybe one day Diana would like to look at some of the local magazines and see her dress and big day featured inside their pages. So Marcus had given in.
He made his way from the side stairs to the front of the church, conscious of the many eyes on him. The woolly-haired priest was already waiting for him at the altar in his flowing white vestments, his kind brown hands clasped in front of him as he took in the attendees and then Marcus.
“Are you doing well, my son?” The priest’s dark eyes sought out Marcus.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, Father. I am.”
“Very good.”
Seven settled into his place at Marcus’s side. He patted the pocket of his vest, probably to make sure the rings were still there, then squeezed Marcus’s shoulder. “Are you absolutely sure you’re ready for this?” His eyes glittered with merciless humor. He knew that Marcus had waited a long time for this moment.
“I think I’ve been ready since the moment I met Diana,” he said.
But that didn’t stop his heart from machine-gunning in his chest. To help calm down, he searched the church for his family and friends, most of whom had thought this day would never come.
His father sat in the front row next to his mother, both of them apparently trying very hard not to look at each other. His stepmother sat on the other side of her husband, but stared daggers at the former Mrs. Quentin Stanfield. Marcus’s mother looked unfazed.
At the back of the church, the last of the groomsmen trickled outside to pair up with the bridesmaids and get ready to escort them down the aisle. Marcus forced himself not to look at his watch again. He swallowed as the doors fell closed, cutting off all natural light in the church except for the sun pouring in rich shades of aquamarine, scarlet and gold through the stained glass skylights and windows.
“Okay,” Seven said to the priest. “I think we’re ready.”
But just as everyone settled into place, the double doors opened again. A blade of bright sunshine swept through the church, illuminating the sea of people inside it. An older couple walked in.
“Oh! Excuse me,” a woman said softly.
She came into the church wearing a plain but beautiful blue lace dress. The look on her face was harried, but she and her escort walked in with a quiet dignity. Marcus caught a glimpse of Trish just outside the church doors. Diana’s best friend watched the couple for a moment to make sure they were taken care of, then she closed the double doors once again.
Marcus looked at Seven, and his friend immediately took charge. He quietly rushed down the aisle to usher the woman and her husband to the front of the church and to the bride’s side. Marcus released a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. Now the wedding could begin.
He turned to the priest, who smiled benignly before nodding toward the orchestra for them to play the processional music. Tension dropped into Marcus’s chest again. He swallowed thickly as the church’s front doors were pulled open once again to the low and haunting sounds of the piano.
Marcus tightened and released his fists at his sides as the wedding party made its way down the aisle. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were paired up and seemed to walk forever. Then came Trish, the maid of honor. Finally, the music changed to “Here Comes the Bride.” Two flower girls in yellow dresses walked in side by side, dropping yellow rose petals as they went.
Marcus’s breath nearly left him.
Escorted by her brother, Diana walked down the aisle toward him in a dress that he would probably never remember after that day. All he saw was her face. Her breathtaking beauty and trembling smile. Her hair was pinned up under a floral tiara, and a veil framed the loveliness of the woman he’d fallen completely in love with.
With her face uncovered, he was able to see her every emotion. Her anxiety. The love in her eyes when she saw him. He also knew the exact moment when she noticed her mother at the front of the church. Her footsteps faltered for a moment. Her chin wobbled. Then she straightened her posture and glided toward him on the carpet of yellow roses.
Jason escorted her to Marcus’s side, then placed her hand in his.
“Take care of her,” he growled.
But the boy wasn’t telling Marcus anything that he didn’t already plan on doing.
“Chill,” he said to Jason.
Then he was done giving his attention where it did not belong. Diana’s fingers grasped his.
“Thank you,” she said as a single tear fell down her cheek. “Thank you for making sure my mother got here.”
He squeezed her hand in return. “Did you doubt me?”
She blushed and briefly looked away, then smiled. “Not you,” she said. “Her.”
But her mother had made it there anyway, despite a flat tire and not having a spare in the trunk and being unable to reach Diana to tell her that she and her husband were having troubles. Luckily, Diana’s mother had finally thought to call Trish, and the day had been saved. Diana’s special day.
“I love you,” she whispered for his ears alone. “So very, very much.”
As the priest faced the congregation and the music subsided, all the love Marcus felt for Diana rose over him like a warm and all-encompassing wave. He gratefully
surrendered to it.
“I love you, Diana.” His voice deepened. “For always.”
*
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ISBN-13: 9781460337097
SULTRY PLEASURE
Copyright © 2014 by Lindsay Evans
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