by Bethany-Kris
Christopher called for the next man to pay his boss.
Marcus gave his brother a look from the side. “The chances of the bikers attacking this weekend are less than nil—the chances of them attacking me is ... even less. Don’t be another person riding my ass. I have enough.”
His brother frowned. “I worry.”
“Don’t.”
• • •
Marcus arrived at his father’s mansion a day later more frustrated than he should have been. He might be the acting boss of the family, but his father still had all the say behind the scenes. His mood wouldn’t be welcomed when he was intended to deliver the tribute he collected to his boss—who never behaved as his father when business was in play—but he couldn’t shake the irritation thickening his blood.
He blamed everything for it.
Everything but himself.
It didn’t help that Marcus should have delivered this tribute the night before to his father, so he wouldn’t have to do it today. Then, he could have been at home when Cella arrived with Tiffany after driving from Rochester. Those plans quickly had to change when his father decided he didn’t want guests the night before.
Not even his son with money.
Instead, he’d called way too fucking early to say Marcus could come and deliver the tribute while his father took breakfast on the back terrace. Did it matter that Cella would be arriving that morning? Apparently not.
“You look sour for it being a beautiful Friday morning,” Marcus’s mother said, greeting him at the front door. Despite wishing he could just drop off the money and go, he knew better than that. He offered his mother a smile and kissed her cheek. “That’s a little better. Things on your mind?”
Marcus lifted the envelope with the cash inside. Quite a bit of cash, frankly, because it weighed his hand down. “Business for Papa, that’s all.”
“I hear you have a guest coming today, too.”
He couldn’t help but genuinely smile at that. “I do.”
His mother gave him a look that screamed I know what you haven’t told me, I can see it written all over your face. She always had known her boys better than anyone. He wasn’t sure if that was because they came from their mother—she helped to make them, carried them for nine months before giving them life, after all—or if it was her penchant for being able to shrink heads. Either way, he didn’t mind.
It was just his ma.
“I’m very happy,” he told her.
Cara grinned knowingly. “I can tell. See, I told you that little issue you were having would work out somehow.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Months ago, all you wanted to focus on were the stupid socialite rags that wouldn’t leave you alone. You haven’t mentioned those once since, Marcus. And why should you? Nothing they have to say holds any importance to what matters in your private life. Have you even noticed them recently?”
He had to think about that.
Really think about it.
“No,” he said, “I haven’t.”
Partly because he had better things to focus on, and also he’d been too busy to even stop at the grocery store near his penthouse in the city where the rags usually mocked him at the register while he paid. Instead, he had his assistant, someone his brother hired to handle different things for him who usually deferred to Chris and not even Marcus, when he needed something done.
“In case you’re curious,” his mother said as she stepped away to grant him access to the grand entry of the mansion, “they have yet to pick up wind of her.”
Well, then ...
“That’s good to know.”
“Your father is in the back. Find me before you leave. I might like to find out if there’s a time I can sneak those two away from you this weekend.”
“Well, that is gonna cost you, Ma.”
Cara’s laughter followed him through the grand entry as he headed for the back of the mansion. The shitty mood bringing him down seemed to disappear with nothing more than a conversation from his mother. Not that it shocked him seeing as how his mother always knew how to bring her sons out of a mood.
Of course, that all had to change when he stepped out onto the rear terrace to find his father waiting for him. Not that the sight of Gian did it, but rather, the fact that his father stared at him as though he were less than impressed with the sight in front of him, and like he’d been waiting for his son.
“Boss,” Marcus greeted.
Gian smiled tightly.
Another bad sign.
“Sit,” his father said, pointing at the chair across from him at the small, glass table outfitted with wicker chairs on either side. “And we’ll have a chat.”
“I was hoping to drop this off, and just go. I have somewhere—”
“Marcus, you will sit, and we will chat.”
All right, then.
The fact that his father was already dressed in a three-piece suit when it wasn’t even eight in the morning should have been a clue that something was up, honestly. Gian preferred to stay in his sleep clothes until he was ready to leave his home.
Taking a seat at the table, Marcus handed the large envelope over and waited silently while his father opened it up and began pulling the stacks of cash out. Gian didn’t intend to make his son wait for long before he explained exactly why he was acting strange.
“When were you planning to tell me about the problems you’ve had with the bikers over the maple farms?”
Ah.
That explained a lot.
“Did you need to know?” Marcus asked back. “I’ve handled it again and again. And without much issues, seeing as how you’re only finding out now, right?”
Gian glanced up from a wad of bills in his hand, giving Marcus a look that practically screamed for him to check his fucking attitude. Everybody liked to talk about their mother having that look—a single glance that all kids recognized meant they were about to be in trouble. Well, here Marcus was as a grown man, and his father had one of those looks.
Came with the territory, he suspected.
“Explain to me,” Gian said quietly, his tone suggesting Marcus walk a very careful line the next time he opened his mouth to speak, “why you thought an issue that could very well hurt our business and bring us much unwanted and unneeded attention wasn’t important enough for you to ... at the very least, Marcus, discuss with me. By all means, I apparently have time today to teach my son who should already know how this business works about what he needs to do, so go ahead. I will wait.”
With the understanding Marcus needed to give his father the respect he was due for being both who he was, and having the status he did, that didn’t stop him from getting irritated all over again.
“The issue is being handled,” Marcus said, “the very same way you would handle it, because I kept you in mind while dealing with it. It’s still being handled, and as the media has not yet gotten wind that the Guzzis have anything to do with the recent death of the gang’s president, or that we were even in talks with them, I think that proves everything was fine, no?”
“I’m concerned that you assumed you didn’t need to tell me, son. And what else you might not be telling me regarding business.”
Oh, was that it?
“Or is it something else?” Marcus asked.
Gian raised a brow at that question. “I beg your pardon?”
“You were quite clear that unless I needed to bring something to your attention because I couldn’t handle it otherwise, I was to deal with everything. Act as the boss, being that’s what you wanted the men to see me as. Because you can’t sit a new boss down while the old boss is still making the calls. Am I wrong?”
His father said nothing.
Marcus continued on with, “So do you really want to step back here, Papa, or do you just want to tell me how to do my job from the wings? I mean, if that’s what it is, at least let me know so that I understand what’s really happening here.”
“Marcus—”
The silence stretched on between the two of them.
Marcus didn’t mind.
Finally, his father said, “Keeping me updated on a situation doesn’t mean I would step in, or force you to make other choices. It concerned me, that’s all. I worry you have too many plates spinning in the air, Marcus, and one is about to fall. If you can’t, at the very least, keep me informed on the business side of things, then what else are you overlooking?”
“Nothing. I made a choice not to involve you in a situation I didn’t think needed your hand. Nothing more, and nothing less.”
“And when maple season comes up, what do you plan to do if you’re still having these issues with the bikers? Specifically for the farm in Quebec, since I hear that’s the one they’ve got a hard nut for and all.”
“We’re not at the season yet.”
“But you will be.”
“And I will handle it,” he replied firmly.
Because if his father could use that and that’s the end of it tone, then so could Marcus.
Be a boss, raise a boss.
Gian made this.
Marcus.
“And now I have somewhere to be,” he told his father, standing from the table, “so if you’ll excuse me, I would like to get back to that.”
Gian sighed, nodding at the rear doors of the mansion. “Say hello to Cella for me.”
“I will. Have a good day, Papa.”
• • •
It took Marcus entirely too long to battle traffic and get home to the house in the suburbs. The clock on his dashboard said it was a little past noon—far later than he expected to get back. With his mind running a million miles a minute, considering all the shit his father said because what if Gian had been right?
What if he was fucking up?
Missing something ...
He was so distracted, in fact, that he didn’t even notice the vehicle he parked beside in his own driveway. That’s what people didn’t realize when it came to Marcus. When someone second-guessed him and made it known, that had him checking himself, too.
He couldn’t have that.
Couldn’t expend the energy.
Or the problems it might cause.
His flustered mind quickly cleared as he walked up the front steps to the house, and the door flung open. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about Cella coming, but all the other shit piled into his head and took over for a short bit. He finally realized he’d parked beside her car.
And that she was now standing in front of him.
Marcus smiled.
Light came back to his life.
“Hey,” he said.
Cella’s grin blew wide before she came out the door. His arms were already open, ready to catch her as she darted forward. The second she was in his embrace, nothing else but her mattered. Those painted-red lips of hers pressed against his, and all he cared about was getting her inside his house and closing out the rest of the world.
Between his kisses, she managed to mumble against his lips, “Missed you. Tiffany is having a nap because she was too excited to sleep much last night, and she can’t sleep in the car. So, if you are really quiet, then we might be able to—”
“You mean, if you can keep quiet.”
His lips traveled down her throat, and he kicked the door closed behind him.
Cella laughed. “Well, yeah.”
Perfect.
He could work with that.
And what better way to spend an afternoon than fucking this woman?
15.
Cella hummed out a soft moan as Marcus’s fingertips glided down her naked spine with a soft, tantalizing touch. As though her clit weren’t still throbbing with every grind of his hips upward into her. His still-hard cock jerked inside. He’d already fucked her crazy and came once before getting her like this, too.
“Well,” she breathed against his hard chest when her lips pressed down to kiss the damp skin there, “at least we made it to the bedroom.”
His laughter coated her with something sinful and wicked. God, that sound alone could turn her into a woman she didn’t recognize, but one that she loved nonetheless. She could never be this woman with someone else. No one allowed her to be wild and free and loved like she could be when she was alone with Marcus.
“After what, the second round?” he asked, still chuckling.
“Hey, what matters is we made it here.”
“Right, that’s what matters. Not that you’ve still got my cum across your back.”
She was quite sticky.
Cella didn’t really mind.
It felt like another mark he’d added to her, really. Another piece of him that she would take with her, even if she washed it away, and would feel long after he was gone.
Their silence stretched on while his arms circled tightly around her. On top of him, with her face tucked against his chest, she watched the light from the sun dance through the slat between the pulled curtains. She couldn’t remember the last time she spent an afternoon in bed with a man—that’s how long it had been.
Tiff would wake up soon.
They’d have to get out of this bed.
Cella enjoyed it while she could.
“I needed you today more than you know,” Marcus murmured.
Tipping her head up, she reveled in the warmth of his hard lines molded along her softer curves. She met his gaze, the gold flecks in his eyes more noticeable this close. She could get lost in that swirling brown and gold as he watched her. Every single time.
“Why?” she asked.
“Too much shit on my mind. And then there you were ... ripped me right out of it, and let me breathe for five seconds. I needed it. People get me in my head, and then I second-guess everything I do. It makes me think I should be doing things more like they would, maybe, or just different from how I want to do them.”
“Seems ... not like you.”
At all.
The Marcus she knew always seemed to be in control of everything. The people around him, even himself, and whatever else he could extend his hand to, he did. At times, he almost came off as cold because he only really showed emotion with those that he cared about and more often than not, she knew he was put in situations where he couldn’t be himself.
He had to be a version of it.
She wished that didn’t have to be.
“Business is always tricky for me,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “I walk a fine line between the boss I would like to be, and the one others expect me to be because of where I come from. There’s a balance I haven’t found yet, and I feel like it shows when I hit a wall.”
Oh.
That made Cella stiffen a bit.
Marcus didn’t miss it. “What?”
“I just ... didn’t realize that’s what you meant.”
“Business?”
“The mafia,” she replied quietly, avoiding his gaze. “It’s easy for me to put a distance between me and that, I think. I’ve done it for most of my life, and spent the last five years blaming the mafia for taking my daughter’s father from her, and my husband from me. I thought, if I kept a distance between me and it, then it wouldn’t affect me again like it had before.”
“Cella, that’s impossible. You are who you are.”
Yeah, she knew.
That didn’t make it easier, though.
“Look at me, yeah?”
Her gaze turned on him, a reaction she really couldn’t control when it came to Marcus. He just had that kind of power, but especially over her. He demanded something, and she felt helpless until she gave him what he wanted.
It didn’t make any sense.
It felt crazy.
She still loved it.
&nb
sp; “I am who I am, too,” he murmured, holding strong to her gaze, “so if that’s gonna be something you need to work out here, I’m going to need you to do that, Cella. Not later, but now. Before we get deeper into this thing than we already are.”
God.
How much deeper could they go?
The man was still fucking inside her.
His cum still painted her back.
She couldn’t tell him she loved him enough times when he’d been fucking her just minutes ago. She was here. With her kid who seemed just as attached to this man as she was at the end of the day.
Her whole head was filled with stupid, silly things that girls who were new to the game of love thought when they found the one. Hell, she thought she’d already found that once, but look at her, here doing it again with Marcus.
Not that she regretted any of it.
She didn’t.
But how much deeper could they get?
Look at them.
“I trust you,” she told him.
Marcus swallowed thickly. “Good—that’s all that matters to me. And there’s no business this weekend. It’s all about you and her for that, I promise.”
Cella grinned, nibbling on her bottom lip before she pushed up to straddle his hips again. With her hands flat to his chest, she leaned down to get another taste of his mouth. He still tasted like her pussy that he’d loved eating after painting her back with his cum. She started a slow rhythm riding him that had Marcus groaning in the sexiest way against her lips.
There was nothing better than this man moaning.
Hard inside her.
His hands found her hips, and he started grinding back with her rhythm. It had his groin dragging against her clit in the best way. She let him fuck her deep like that, those harsh circles of their bodies hitting her G-spot with each one.
He’d make her come hard like that.
She figured, surely they could fit one more round in?
“Keep making promises,” she whispered into his kiss, “as long as you keep them.”
• • •
“Look at all these maple trees!”
Cella couldn’t help but laugh at how high pitch Tiffany’s voice became in her excitement. Her girl knew nothing about Marcus’s plans for her that weekend, but Cella knew just enough to be well aware that her kid would go crazy.