MARCUS (Dragon Security Book 4) (7 page)

She began to shiver again when it was all over. I pulled her up against the pillows and tugged the blankets up around us. She curled up against my chest and went right to sleep. I did, too, surprisingly. It’d been a long time since I’d slept so easily.

Cadence

The snow was finally coming to an end by morning. I slipped out of bed and dressed, covering myself with a bathrobe that was heavy enough to keep me warm in the chill of the room. I shoved another piece of wood into the stove and brewed some coffee, holding a mug between my hands as I stood at the windows, staring out at the acres and acres of snow that spread out between us and the road.

“Hey,” Marcus said, moving up behind me and kissing my throat. I leaned back into him for a minute, the memory of last night still fresh in my mind.

“We should probably talk,” I said.

I thought I’d feel tension come into him when I said that, but I didn’t. He just wrapped his arms around me and held me close for a long second. Then he pulled away, going into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee before joining me at the counter. We sat side by side on the low stools, both staring into the depths of our coffee cups.

He reached over after a time and tugged my robe open, exposing my injured thigh. He touched the stitches, running his fingertip over the ridges of them slowly.

“I never meant for you to get hurt.”

“Why would you do something like that?’

He didn’t answer me; he just kept running his finger over the stitches that held my skin together. I touched his hand and pressed his palm to my thigh.

“It’s complicated.”

“What is?”

“My relationship with Blake. Your relationship with Blake. It seems like he just attracts these odd situations.”

“What did he do to you to make you want to hurt him?”

“I didn’t want to hurt him, exactly. I just wanted him to know what it felt like to lose something he wanted.”

I shook my head. “You’re talking in riddles.”

“I was hired to protect you. Isn’t that a riddle all in itself?”

I sat back a little so I could see his face clearer. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I work for a security firm, and we were hired to protect you. But I was supposed to keep my distance because Blake didn’t want to stress you out during this very important time.”

I shook my head, remembering the way Blake had checked my apartment the day he came to drop off the keys to the cabin.

“From what?”

“He thinks someone is trying to hurt you. He said that someone tried to run you over outside the lawyer’s office.”

I snorted. “That was just a stupid accident. I never should have told him about it.”

“Do you think someone’s after you?”

“Besides you?”

He looked a little shameful. “Besides me.”

I shook my head. “Why would they be? No one knows about me, no one has reason to want me dead. And the only people who know about the surrogacy are Blake and Annie, their doctor and lawyer. That’s all.”

“What about other aspects of your life? Someone from your past?”

“I have no past.” I laughed when he shot me a funny look. “I grew up with my grandma. My mother’s dead, I don’t know who my father was—she probably didn’t, either. I have a small handful of friends. No enemies that I’m aware of. No crazy ex-boyfriends. Just…”

“What?”

I shrugged, a thought I didn’t like floating through my head. “There was this one guy, but…”

Leon. He’d known about my grandma’s thrifty lifestyle, about the money she squirreled away for me before she died. He’d wanted me to invest in some crazy scheme of his and was pretty angry when I refused. That’s probably the closest I ever came to the whole crazy ex idea.

“I don’t think anyone in my past would want to hurt me.”

“Your mom? How did she die?”

“Drug overdose. But that was when I was just an infant.”

Marcus nodded, his attention turned back to his mug of coffee. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head.

“Who hired you?”

He looked up. “Blake.”

“No, I mean who hired you to scare me away?”

“No one. I did that on my own.”

“Why?”

He got up and walked around the counter, going to the stove to check the fire. I got up to follow, watching him move, watching the way his body flexed when he bent over. He scared me. I could still see his face with that gun pointed at me, could still see him racing out of the parking lot. I felt sick to my stomach, the memory of it burned in my thigh. The ache wasn’t about to let me forget.

But there was another ache deep in my belly that wouldn’t let me forget his touch.

“What would have happened if I turned the wrong way? What would have happened if you hadn’t just grazed my thigh?”

Tension filled his shoulders, but he didn’t turn, didn’t respond.

“What made you do something like that? Why would you take such a risk? Why do you hate Blake that much?”

“I don’t hate him.”

“Then why?”

He shook his head. “It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He stood and turned to face me, his eyes hooded. But then he just brushed past me, snatching his jacket off the back of the chair on his way out the door. The snow had stopped, but the wind was whipping around the loose snow, creating a whiteout sort of thing. I could hardly see him through the kitchen window, just a hunched over shadow digging through the snow where I fell last night.

He was looking for his gun.

My heart jumped into my throat. I felt as if I should stop him somehow, run out there and demand that he leave the gun where it was. But then my thoughts moved to the threat he and Blake both seemed to think was after me. Maybe it’d be better to have a gun. But what if Marcus suddenly decided he wanted to try to scare me off again?

I was so confused. Did Marcus want to hurt me or keep me safe? First he shoots at me, and then he saves me from freezing to death. It didn’t make sense.

I felt frozen to the floor, unable to move, unable to make a decision. Marcus’ shadow disappeared. For a moment, I considered what would happen if he just vanished. I’d be alone, like I was supposed to be. Would that be better? Just the thought made my heart start to pound a little faster, made me want to reach for that knife hidden under my pillow. I was afraid with Marcus here. I was more afraid of the thought of being alone.

I can’t even begin to describe the relief that rushed through me when he suddenly burst through the front door.

He was shivering, his arms wrapped around his body. I ran around him, grabbing a blanket off the bed, and threw it over him.

“You should go take a shower. It’ll warm you up.”

He nodded. “It’s actually warmer out there, I think.”

I smiled. “Looks like it.”

He shivered again, smiling at me as he brushed past. He took his gun out of his waistband and slid it into the holster, then tossed something onto the nightstand as he went by, shedding the blanket as he stepped into the bathroom. I grabbed a hand towel from the kitchen and wiped up the melted snow that was puddling on the floor. I heard the shower come on and found myself wondering about the man undressing behind that thin bathroom door.

What’d happened between him and Blake? Why would he want to hurt Blake enough to make him do what he did in that restaurant parking lot?

I found myself suddenly a beehive of activity, moving around the cabin, washing up our coffee mugs, making the bed, draining the bathtub. I heard the water stop in the shower about the same moment I realized what it was he’d thrown onto the nightstand.

Condoms. He’d found condoms somewhere.

Was that why he went outside? Did he know they were there? Why was he carrying around a whole stack of condoms? What was he expecting to happen up here?

Did he come here with the intention of getting locked in this cabin with me?

I was confused, yet there was this smile that refused to leave my lips.

Marcus stepped out of the bathroom, nothing but a towel around his waist.

“Why are you here?”

He studied my face a moment. “Why are you?”

“I came here to get away from whatever or whoever was trying to hurt me.”

“I was following you.”

“Why?”

He took my face between his hands and kissed me. I want to fight him, to force him to answer my questions. But then my bones began to melt and my body began to mold around him, pulling him close to me, responding to his kiss with more heat than my body should have been capable of. He picked me up, his hands sliding over the smooth material of my robe, just long enough to drop me onto the bed. We fell together, out bodies tangled together with all the right parts in all the right places.

My hands slid over his chest, down his belly, touching all those places I’d so desperately wanted to touch last night: his chest, smooth and warm, his belly, the muscles quivering under my touch. Then his back, the ropey muscles that worked with his every movement. His hip and firm ass, so round with this huge dimple along the side. His mouth moved along my shoulder, over my throat, the heat of his breath making my belly tighten.

“You’re so good,” he whispered near my ear. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“No one asked you to.”

He groaned, amusement dancing in his eyes as he pulled back to study my face.

I reached up to nibble at his throat, my hand wandering down the length of his body again. The towel had slipped open, his cock hard and standing up against his lower belly. I ran my hand along the underside, watching the pleasure dance on his face. He reached down and tried to pull my hand away, but he didn’t try very hard. I slid my hand down the length of him, cupped his balls, and then moved back up, caressing his head with the ball of my thumb.

“Oh, God!” he moaned against my ear, his teeth drawing my lobe between them.

“Is that right?” I asked softly.

“That’s amazing.”

I stroked him again, my fingers lingering on his shaft. Then back down, my palm pressing him hard against his abdomen. Then back up, up and down, watching the pleasure cause tremors in his muscles. It was powerful, knowing I could turn this big, handsome man into a bowl of melting need. I kissed his neck, his collarbone, working my way slowly down his chest. My tongue teased his nipples and he moaned, his hands moving over the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair.

I pushed him back, amused at how easy it was to maneuver him with just a touch on his shoulder. I sat up on my knees and shed my robe, loving the way his eyes moved over my bare breasts, my naked hips. I bent low to kiss his chest, to run my tongue along the narrow spaces between his ribs. He laid his hand on my thigh, his hand big enough to cover nearly the whole back of it. He ran his hand up and down, slowly pressing his fingers between my legs, his fingers brushing my cunt. My clit ached for him to seek it out, for him to touch me the same way he had last night. I wiggled my ass a little, encouraging him even as I made my way slowly down his belly, peppering him with kisses, careful not to touch his cock until I was ready.

I took him in my hand and felt his stomach muscles jump. His hand moved up over my ass, his finger sliding slowly along the line between my cheeks. I leaned back into him, aching to feel that finger inside of me. But he teased me, sliding it along my puffy outer lips, refusing to give me what I wanted when I wasn’t giving him what he wanted. So I pushed myself up on my hands and took him, a little bit at a time, running my tongue over the surprisingly soft skin covering his rigid cock.

He lay back, his breathing the only indication I had that he was enjoying what I was doing. I’d never…but there was always a first time for everything. And it was fun to learn these things, fun to feel the power racing through him, the power I had over him. I knew if I stopped, he would not be pleased, but if I continued, he would experience heights that I myself had only begun to taste. That was power.

He suddenly partially sat up, grabbing my hips and pulling my body up over his. The next thing I know, he’s buried his head between my legs, doing things I’d read about late at night in the dirty books I still felt the need to hide even though my grandma had been dead for quite some time. Last night had only been a sampler compared to what he was doing to me now. The deeper I took him, the deeper his tongue, his fingers, lost themselves inside of me. My head was spinning and I could hardly breathe, the ache deep in my body pushing me to do more, to be more adventurous while, at the same time, I wanted to just lie still and allow the sensations of his touch to roll over me.

I don’t know which of us pulled away first. I know it was he who reached over and grabbed the condoms off the nightstand. I sat up, moving behind him and leaning over his shoulder to watch as he rolled a freed condom over his cock, fascinated with the procedure for reasons that had nothing to do with what was going to come next. I was just fascinated with everything about him, every move he made, every smile he smiled, every word that fell from his lips. I wanted to soak it all up, to remember it all, and to remember that I was a part of something that included this big, handsome, masculine man.

He turned, grabbing my chin in his hand and stealing a hot, passionate kiss as he pushed me backward. But he didn’t want me to lie down. He lifted me, pressed me up against the wrought iron headboard, his hands moving from my breasts down to my hips. He pulled my hips back against him even as he pressed his mouth against my shoulder, as he bit down, leaving a mark I’d see in the mirror later. And then he pulled away, his hand brushing my ass as he guided himself to me.