Mark (Mallick Brothers 3)

To that, a low chuckle moved through him. "Gotta love Fee, always looking for new business opportunities. I hate to break this to you," he said, looking a bit guilty. "But this is looking like it is going to be an all-day thing. It usually is with my family."

"That's fine," I said, shaking my head, wondering why he thought he needed to apologize for that, knowing how important my own family was to me. "I'm happy to get to know them a little better. I didn't get to talk to your brothers yet."

Then his face lit the hell up.

And while he was stupidly good-looking all the time, he was almost other-worldly right then.

I found myself wondering what I could possibly do to get that look from him again. But as the day (and night) went on, I would catch him giving me that look often. When I laughed at something absurd that Shane said, or sat and discussed getting a memorial tattoo for my mother with Hunter, or looked through some of Eli's awesome artwork on his phone, or discussed business opportunities with Ryan.

By the time they all shuffled out, it was dark, Fee's girls were whiny and covered in chocolate from the dessert their grandfather had indulged them with, the kitchen was a mess, and I was a happy kind of exhausted.

"Leave it," Mark said when I went to reach for the plates on the island and bring them to the sink. "They can wait. I can't," he informed me, grabbing my hand, and yanking me toward his chest.

"Oh, no?" I asked, playing coy. "Can't wait for what?"

Coy went out the window the next moment when his hands went down my back to my ass, sank in, lifted me off my feet, wrapped me around him, shoved me back against the wall, and announced, "To have my cock back in that hot, tight pussy of yours."

So then after a lovely day getting to know his family, feeling almost a part of it already, making friends, he fucked me silly against his kitchen wall, then we dragged ourselves up to bed where he went down on me until I was sure I woke up everyone on the street, then he wrapped me up and we slept.

Perfect.

It was so perfect that it was painful.

And I woke up to see that Mark did not do anything by half.

And, again, it was perfect.THIRTEENScotti"Mark, what is that weird, floral..." I was saying as I walked down the stairs, tying up my long, wet hair. But then my foot met the bottom stair and I could see into the living room, and the rest of the sentence was cut off because the answer was staring me in the face. "Oh," was all I could seem to manage as I realized what he had done.

You want flowers, baby? I'll get you flowers.

That was what he had said back at the cabin.

And Mark, when he made a promise, he delivered.

Ten-fold.

Or maybe a thousand-fold.

Honestly, I wasn't sure exactly how many flowers there were in his living room. Because, quite frankly, they covered every single spare inch of it. They were across the back of the couch, the cushions, the coffee table, the floor, the windowsill. Literally, the only space left was a small walkway that led to the kitchen, like they were motioning me toward it.

There was no stopping the huge, mushy, awestruck grin that threatened to split my face as I stepped into the room, picking a random daisy out of a vase right by the base of the staircase. I brought it up, breathing deep, deciding that that very flower had to have that cheesy 'pressed between the pages' thing done to it. A gesture this grand, this sweet, it deserved to be immortalized forever.

They weren't all daisies.

They couldn't be.

There were too many.

It would have taken all the daisies in all the florist shops in Jersey to make up this display. Instead, there were flowers of every kind of color and variety. Pink roses here, lovely white lilies there, chrysanthemums in the corner.

I reached into my back pocket, pulled out a burner I had kept longer than I had ever kept a phone before, and snapped a picture. Even if I did have to toss the phone, I could email the picture to myself to have forever.

"Mark?" I called, hearing nothing as I followed the little path through my floral garden toward the kitchen.

Over the almost overpowering mix of different flower scents, I could smell the heady aroma of coffee, the promise of which had been the only thing to pull me out of bed half an hour before.

"This was am... oh." I stopped just inside the kitchen, finding it empty. There were a cup and spoon beside the coffee pot for me and a sheet of paper.