That is, if one ignores the possessive heat in his cool blue eyes as they travel over my short pink robe and the bare legs underneath it.
Holy fuck. Does he want more sex?
With me?
Is this going to be a thing now?
I stop by my closet, eyeing him uncertainly as Mr. Puffs meows from his perch on the top shelf. “So,” I start, ignoring the cat, “about the—”
“I told Wilson to move our reservation by an hour.” Marcus stands up, his tall, large figure making my studio look even smaller. “We’ll make it on time if you don’t take too long to get dressed.”
I gape at him. “You still want to go out to dinner?”
He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Because you just fucked me ten ways to Sunday without needing to take me anywhere, I want to say, but I choke back the words in time. “No reason,” I mumble instead, grabbing a clean pair of panties from the closet before making my way over to the desk, where the jeans, sweater, and bra I’d been wearing are lying neatly folded, with Queen Elizabeth and Cottonball stretched out on top of them.
Marcus must’ve picked up my clothes from the floor or the bed—or wherever they ended up when he pulled them off me.
By all logic, I should refuse to go to dinner with him. As hot as the sex was, it doesn’t change our incompatibility—nor the fact that he’s already met the woman he might marry. For now, I can still nip this in the bud, put a stop to the madness before I get badly hurt. That would be the rational thing to do, the smart thing, yet I already know I won’t do it.
I want more of Marcus.
I want the madness to continue.
“Give me a sec,” I say breathlessly, and shooing the cats off my desk, I grab my clothes and rush back to the bathroom to get dressed.
31
Marcus
All three of her cats seem displeased that she’s leaving with me, with the big one meowing loudly as I lead Emma out of the apartment, my palm resting on her lower back.
On the precise spot where she has those alluring dimples.
Fuck, those little indentations are hot—as is everything about her. I was wrong to think that having her a couple of times would quell this craving. If anything, it’s stronger now, as the reality has far surpassed my imagination. Take those sexy dimples at the base of her spine, for example—I’d never fantasized about them, and now I can’t wait to stare at them as I take her from behind… fucking her pussy and her luscious little ass.
To my shock, my cock stirs again, and I force myself to focus on something other than the filthy things I want to do to her.
Like feeding her some decent Greek food.
That’s definitely high on my list of non-filthy activities.
“You’ve fed them, right?” I ask as I usher her into the back seat of the car. “They’ll be okay for tonight?”
She blinks as I climb in beside her and raise the partition between us and Wilson. “The cats? Yes, I fed them as soon as I came home.”
Good. That means she won’t be able to use that as an excuse not to go to my place after dinner. Because I’m not done with her—not by a long shot.
“So, about those books,” she starts again as our car pulls out into traffic. “I meant what I said earlier… I can’t accept them. They’re far too—”
“They’re a gift, Emma, as are the flowers and the scarf.” I keep my tone soft but uncompromising. The books are indeed worth more than her apartment, but I have no intention of taking them back. Having gone through the investigator’s report, I understand what’s behind her fierce self-reliance, and her reaction to the expensive gifts is exactly what I thought it would be.
I suspected she’d see me, if only to return the gifts, and I was right.
“But where did you even get these books?” she asks, frowning. “And how did you know those are my favorite stories?”
I shrug. “You mentioned it on social media at one point.” Actually, it was part of her college admissions essay, which the investigator found when he hacked into her college records. I have read and reread it several times over the past two days, along with the short stories she’d composed for her Creative Writing class.
Turns out, Emma is not only an excellent editor but also a brilliant writer. Her words flow in such a way that the simplest sentences become compelling, the very rhythm of her writing telling its own tale. However, it’s the content of her stories—and the admissions essay—that had kept me glued to the pages.
There’s so much more than meets the eye with my little redhead, so much darkness in her past that I wouldn’t have guessed at. If I was fascinated by her before, I’m doubly so now that I’ve had a glimpse into her mind. A couple of nights to slake my lust won’t be enough, I see that now.