“Marcus,” I whispered.
He bent his neck, bringing his lips inches from mine. The muscles and tendons of his neck formed thick cords as he hovered, letting his quickened breath mix with mine. It was tantalizing … empowering … tormenting.
“Marcus … I don’t … I … I need …” I forced myself to look at Mike and then the wounded version of myself. “I need time.” Which was something I doubted a man as tantalizing and intimidating as Marcus would be willing to give me.
“Ah … but Lex, we are Nejeret. We have an eternity. By the time our courtship is through, you’ll beg me to take you to bed,” he whispered near my ear before leaning back, keeping a hair’s breadth between us from head to toe. “And even then, I may make you wait.”
Every molecule of air disappeared from my lungs, and all of my blood set a direct route to my groin, spilling heat and tension through my lower abdomen. I was nothing but desire for the man in front of me … the god. Without thought, I closed the minuscule distance between us, softly brushing my lips against his. I savored his deliciously spicy scent.
Instantly, Marcus shifted forward, pressing me more firmly against the fridge. “Marcus,” I breathed, and it was the last thing I said for several long, glorious seconds.
“Lex, you should know,” he said, kissing the sensitive skin beneath my ear, “that what happens in the At isn’t real. These aren’t our actual bodies. This isn’t actually happening … and we’ve never really kissed.” I could feel him grin. “I think I’ll make you wait for the real thing … maybe for days … maybe for weeks.”
I whimpered.
Gently, he kissed me one last time. He was teasing me. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he whispered.
In a flicker of color, I was sitting on my couch with Thora curled up in my lap. Leaning the back of my head against the couch, I sighed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Do & Don’t
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found Marcus lounging outside the entrance to my building the following morning … shouldn’t have been, but was. He leaned with his back against the building’s worn bricks, staring up into a sky that was almost perfectly clear. The stark contrast of his very short, very dark hair and long, black eyelashes against the rich golden hues of his skin and eyes was even more striking in the early morning sunlight. As usual, he was impeccably dressed in slate-gray, tailored slacks and a black wool coat, and over it all, he wore confidence like he’d invented it. He embodied what almost every man wanted to be, and who almost every woman wanted to be with.
“Where’s the photographer?” I asked as I exited the building.
His enthralling gaze locked onto me, and with the faintest shift in facial muscles, his jaw became more chiseled, his lower lip more luscious. He was so goddamn good at being irresistible, it was preposterous.
Slinking down several concrete steps, I closed the distance between us. I’d dressed carefully, picking out a snug, boat-neck, crimson sweater and my most flattering jeans paired with dark leather boots that nearly reached my knees. With my second-favorite coat, a hip-length, forest-green pea coat, my ensemble emphasized the few curves my slender body actually had.
From the way Marcus’s eyes narrowed as I approached, I could tell my clothing choice was having the desired effect. I wanted him to crave me so badly that he’d forgo his ridiculous claim that nothing would happen between us for days, or even weeks. I wanted—no, I needed—his real, physical lips to press against mine, his hands to caress me in a moment of uncontrollable passion. I needed evidence that whatever was happening between us was real. I needed something in my life to feel real.
Mimicking his pose, I leaned against the brick wall beside him, our wool sleeves nearly touching.
“The way we look—it’s just part of being Nejeret,” Marcus said silkily.
I cocked my head, watching him watch me.
“We change more in the year after we manifest than in the rest of our long lives. And then we are forever altered … not human … other.” He sounded slightly disgusted. Does he not like being Nejeret?
“I don’t care,” I said, hoping to dispel his suddenly glum mood. “If I were a photographer, I’d beg you to be my model.” Admittedly, part of me was trying to provoke him, trying to get him to loosen his rigid control. I was hoping to reduce days or weeks to seconds or minutes.
Rotating abruptly, Marcus planted his hands on either side of me and blocked the outside world with his body. Somehow, not an inch of him was touching me. I wanted to growl in frustration.
“What will change about you, Little Ivanov?” he whispered. Apparently, he’d taken a liking to manipulating my grandfather’s surname into his own pet name for me. The cage of flesh and bone was redundant; Marcus’s penetrating gaze—again more gold than amber—pinned me in place better than any physical restraints possibly could. “Why can’t I keep you just as you are?”
“Maybe I won’t change,” I said softly.
He chuckled, causing goose bumps to pebble my skin. “You’ve already started—your eyes have deviated so far from normal human coloring that you’ll have to start wearing contacts soon.”
“Is that what you do?” I asked. Usually his eyes were a rich, black-rimmed amber color, but today they paled to liquid gold. When he nodded, I said, “But not always.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “No, not always.”
I reached my right hand up and traced the sharp contours around his eye, from brow to cheekbone. “I like you better like this … au naturel …”
He smirked, raising a single eyebrow.
“So, um … what were your big changes?” I asked, running my fingers along his jaw. I couldn’t imagine a single piece of him different than it was at that moment.
“It’s hard to describe … maybe I’ll take you back sometime, let you decide,” he said.
I was about to tell him that I might just peek into the past on my own, that maybe I didn’t need him to guide me around the At, but he leaned down, inching his mouth past my lips, chin, jaw. Never touching. Speech evaded me. With his nose barely skimming the skin beneath my ear, he inhaled. The noise he made upon exhaling was rough and animalistic, both satisfied and laden with unfulfilled need. Again, I could feel the blood rushing to my belly and lower, moistening and swelling certain sensitive parts in preparation for what my body wanted … for what I wanted.
“Time to go, Lex,” he said, his voice barely audible, and entwined the fingers of one hand with mine. He pulled me away from the wall, and hand in hand, we headed toward Denny Hall and the work that awaited us.
***
After hours of phone calls and emails arranging interviews with potential field school students, I finally left The Pit and stepped outside to stretch my legs. I found it slightly amusing that I’d done nothing remotely archaeological for the past two days—not since deciphering the riddle at the end of Senenmut’s tablet and possibly discovering the secret temple entrance—and instead was helping Dominic arrange the field school logistics. Interviewing, selecting, and prepping the students who would be the rough equivalent of his slaves for several months was apparently too menial a task for Marcus.
“Help Dom,” Marcus had told me as we’d arrived that morning.
“But … shouldn’t I be using my deciphering skills? What happened to ‘your job is to uncover Hatchepsut’s many secrets, Ms. Larson’?” I’d asked him, doing a fair job of imitating his confident tone and complex accent.
He’d chuckled. “You’ve already advanced us greatly with the tablet. Now I need you to help Dominic.”
“If you say so, boss,” I’d teased before joining Dominic at the far end of the room. Marcus had disappeared from The Pit shortly thereafter and I hadn’t seen him since.
Early in the afternoon, I left the warmth of Denny Hall, intending to take a walk despite the weeping sky. Once outside, I made it about twenty feet. Just as I was nearing the building’s southwest corner, the sound of two very angry vo
ices stopped me in my tracks—Marcus and Neffe.
Unabashedly, I slinked closer to the smooth, gray stone wall, inching toward the corner and the argument.
“You are unbelievable!” Neffe shouted in exasperation. “I cast my lot with you … put my trust in you for how many years? And now—now—you want to risk it all for some … some …”
“As I said, child, this is none of your concern,” Marcus growled.
“Child? Me? She is the child! Why her, huh? After so long, why her? At least tell me that!” Neffe yelled.
In a tone so cold I could almost feel the weak rain turning to icy needles, Marcus warned, “You forget yourself, girl.”
“I forget nothing!” Neffe hissed right before she barreled around the corner … straight into me.
“Crap!” I exclaimed. Had I not just been caught eavesdropping on a woman who seemed to despise me and the man I desperately wanted to jump into bed with, Neffe’s expression would have been funny. Instead, seeing her perfectly made-up face frozen in shock, seeing her artfully arranged curls out of place, made me cringe. She looked scary as hell.
A normal person would step back and attempt to compose themselves if they ran headlong into someone else. Neffe was far from normal. She leaned in close and whispered, “If you ruin this, I swear—”
Razor-sharp, lyrically beautiful syllables cut her off mid-threat. I had no idea what Marcus had just said, but Neffe’s reaction—her features going slack as she stumbled backward—told me he hadn’t been talking about fluffy bunnies and milkshakes. She rushed into the building. Or, at least, I think she rushed into the building—my attention had been completely hijacked by the thundercloud of a man approaching me.
“How much did you hear?” he asked, his voice hard.
“Um … I’m not sure. It didn’t really make sense.”
With a frigid laugh, Marcus said, “No, I don’t imagine it did.”
“Are you two … or, were you two, you know … involved?” I asked shakily. It had sounded like a lovers’ spat, and I really wasn’t interested in taking on an “other woman” role—not even for Marcus.
His responding laugh shed some of the chill, sounding almost tepid. “No, Lex, definitely not.”
I felt a sudden rush of relief. “Oh.”
“Neffe won’t bother you again, but perhaps you should go home for the day,” he suggested.
“Thank you, but, no. I don’t know if she thinks this excavation belongs to her, or what, but I won’t let her drive me away.”
Marcus’s lips pursed slightly, like he was trying not to smile. “Very well,” he said. “Just don’t leave too late. I’ll pick you up at seven this evening. Don’t forget …”
Unwilling to let him tease me into a pile of goo again, I stood up straighter. “I’m going to get back to work.”
“I’ll walk you up,” Marcus said, leading the way to the door and holding it open.
“So … what’s the plan for tonight? Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
***
For what seemed like the first time in my life, I was ready early. I’d been sitting in my usual kitchen chair, shaking the leather-clad foot of my crossed leg, when the knock sounded at the door. I bounced up and clacked across the hardwood floor in my knee-high boots.
I opened the door and offered a breathy “Hi.”
Marcus looked more amazing than usual in an impeccably tailored, charcoal suit and a faintly striped, white dress shirt. The top two buttons were undone, making him look a little relaxed … and slightly less intimidating than usual. His golden, tiger eyes scanned me slowly from my toes up, narrowing to predatory slits by the time they reached my face.
“Mmm … Lex,” he purred. “You look ravishing.”
I blushed at the compliment. I was wearing the only remotely acceptable date dress I had. It was a form-fitting, burgundy silk sheath that reached just below mid-thigh. I’d left my hair down, its dark, loose waves reaching the bottom of my shoulder blades.
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” I mused, watching his eyes glitter at the understated compliment. Marcus, I was sure, was more used to women saying things like “Oh, you’re so beautiful, do me right now,” or “You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen!” Sure, I was thinking both at the moment, but I figured his ego didn’t need any additional boosting.
He sighed dramatically. “As much as I hate to say it, I must advise you to cover your … delectable outfit with a warm coat. It’s snowing.” He said “snowing” like it was a disgusting wad of gum stuck to the bottom of one of his Armani shoes.
“What? Really?” I asked, instantly giddy. Abandoning Marcus in the open doorway, I rushed to the living room window to peer out into the night. Outside of the pools of light coming from the streetlamps, large, fluffy flakes of snow were nearly invisible, making the glowing areas look like conical snow globes.
“Do you always get this excited about snow?” Marcus asked from directly behind me, slipping the sleeves of a black wool trench coat—my third-favorite coat—up my bare arms and over my shoulders.
“No,” I said, laughing. “Only in this city—it never snows here!”
“I see,” he said, reaching around me to fasten the top button of my coat. Unlike the previous time he’d tried to bundle me up, I didn’t swat his hands away.
He moved closer, pressing the front of his suit against my backside from shoulders to mid-thigh. His delicious, spicy scent—like a mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg—enveloped me, along with his arms. Even through the fabric of our clothing, his body felt like layers of powerful, hard-packed muscle. I let my arms dangle, feeling electrically alive with his immense strength wrapped so gently around me. It was like I was a kitten in the lethal clutches of a panther, and I’d never felt more safe.
His wrists lightly skimmed my breasts several times as he fitted the first black disk through its intended slit. With each descending button, an increasingly familiar fluttering amplified in my abdomen. It began like the usual butterflies that burst into life whenever I was around a man I was interested in, but by the third button, located a few inches below my navel, the butterflies had morphed into something larger and more substantial. By the fourth and final button, located directly over my pubic bone, I felt like I had a charm of hummingbirds buzzing around inside me, my whole body thrumming with their frenzied rhythm. Marcus lingered long enough on that lowest enclosure to assure me of his eventual intentions without seeming overtly improprietous. Oh, he definitely seemed improprietous … just not overtly so.
When he stepped away, my breathing was noticeably quickened and I’d forgotten the snow entirely. Somehow, putting on a heavy winter coat had been the single most erotic experience of my entire life. Damn … I’m in way over my head.
Marcus cleared his throat. “We should go.”
I took a moment to compose myself before turning. “Certainly,” I said with forced cheerfulness. I didn’t want to go anywhere; I wanted to stand in that exact spot while the man before me removed everything I was wearing with the same agonizing attention he’d used to button my coat.
I accepted his outstretched arm, slipping my hand into the crook of his elbow, and we departed my apartment. We left behind most of the sexual tension. Unfortunately, Marcus created the stuff like an industrial fog machine.
“So what kind of car is this, anyway?” I asked as he helped me into the same low coupe he’d driven me home in days before. It was slate-gray, sleek, and a perfect match for its driver.
“An Aston Martin Vantage,” Marcus told me, getting into the driver’s side.
“Oh, wow,” I said, trying not to touch anything unnecessarily. I was about as far as you could get from being a car person, but I wasn’t completely clueless. “It’s, um … really nice.”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound. “I agree. It’s my favorite.” I couldn’t tell if he meant it was his favorite car in the world or his favorite among his own car collection. He’s not
just an archaeologist, I reminded myself. He’s Nejeret and a member of the Council of Seven …
The short drive passed in aching, palpable silence. Though most of my mental power was focused on not jumping the driver, I did manage to spare a few thoughts about where we were going. We skirted the western edge of campus and its many apartment buildings until we reached Ravenna, the adorable neighborhood abutting the university’s northern edge. Fraternities and sororities filled the first few blocks with their deceptively beautiful exteriors, slowly giving way to the ivy-covered porches and manicured gardens of a truly residential area. Some of the university’s wealthier faculty members and scholars occupied the stately mixture of brick homes and craftsman bungalows.
“Unless there’s an unmarked restaurant here, I’m assuming this is your house,” I said as we pulled into a narrow gravel driveway. In Ravenna, the presence of any driveway was a sign of luxury, not that the house needed it.
I examined my new surroundings as I emerged from the car. The house was ash-gray with white trim and had an adorable porch spanning the entire front. The centered brick steps leading up to the porch were lined with clay pots brimming with purple, red, and white pansies.
“Welcome to my home away from home,” Marcus said as he reached for my hand and led me into the house.
On the walk from entryway to dining room, I peered around at the warm furnishings and tasteful decorations. It was comfy, but nothing I would’ve expected from Marcus, décor-wise. In the dining room, a square, oak table was set for two with the extravagant complexity and perfection of an Edwardian steward. There were more pieces of silverware than I knew what to do with.
“Why, Marcus,” I said, laughing. “Are you making me dinner?”
He chuckled as he held out the chair before the nearest place setting, waiting for me to sit. He sat at the spot on the adjacent side of the table and said, “Definitely not. My culinary repertoire is”—his lips widened to a self-effacing grin—“dated. Breakfast is my strong point.” His grin turned wicked, knowing. “What do you prefer in your omelets, Little Ivanov?”
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