Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Just a Dream

Daisy

That evening, I sat next to Marcus in the back of his big limousine, Ronald driving (again wearing sunglasses, seriously, and night had fallen and everything!), Brady sitting next to him in the front, Marcus sitting next to me with his fingers fiddling with mine against his thigh.

He was on his phone.

It had been a surprise when Brady, not Marcus, had collected me at my door, taking my bag and also putting his hand to the small of my back as he escorted me to the car.

When Brady opened the door to let me in, Marcus was on the phone but his gaze was on me.

However, the instant I sat my ass next to him, he muttered into his cell, “I need a moment.”

He didn’t wait for whoever he was talking to to give him that moment.

He put his hand over the bottom half of his phone, leaned into me, brushed my lips with his, then slanted his head and kissed my neck.

He pulled away and said, “I’m sorry, honey. This is important. I’ll try not to let it take too long.”

I’d just had my man’s man collect me from my door, carry my bag, guide me chivalrously to a limousine in the back of which was my man.

He could be on the phone for an hour, two. With all that and the way he greeted me and apologized, I didn’t give a shit.

To communicate this, I smiled at him, nodded, settled my ass into the leather and it was then he took my hand, pulled it to his thigh, and started fiddling with my fingers.

We drove from my building that was on the east side of Cherry Creek past Colorado Boulevard, into downtown.

It took Marcus all that time to wind down his phone call and he only flipped his cell shut when Ronald hit the indicator and made a turn into underground parking.

“Sorry, darling,” Marcus murmured and I turned my head to him. “How was your day?”

“I watched Gone with the Wind, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Fried Green Tomatoes, so I’m topped up in Southern diva goodness.”

He grinned. “Does that ever run low?”

I shook my head (and hair—I’d gone with my Farrah Fawcett flips-waves-and-curls-run-amuck-except-bigger look), but said, “I’m not takin’ any chances.”

His grin became a smile. He tugged on my hand and pulled me in so he could touch his lips to my forehead.

About that time, Ronald pulled into a spot and stopped, so I tore my eyes from Marcus’s retreating lips and looked out the windshield.

There was a big sign on the concrete wall in front of the spot that said, RESERVED. PENTHOUSE.

Uh.

Penthouse?

The door at my side opened and Marcus let my hand go to put his to my hip and give it a light shove, encouraging in a murmur, “Let’s get you fed, baby.”

I slid out.

That was when I saw in front of the three spots next to the limousine, one that held Marcus’s Mercedes, one that held a black Escalade, and since the Escalade was so big I didn’t see what the other one held, but I did see the same sign on the wall that was in front of the limo and the other spots.

Four parking spaces.

All his.

My Lord.

Marcus took my hand and led me to the elevator that was right next to the parking spot the limo was in.

But of course the owner of the penthouse would have all the best spots.

The elevator came. We got in. Brady got in with us. Ronald and his sunglasses did too.

And it was Ronald that tapped in a code on the elevator pad then hit the button that had the letters PH.

They stood in front of us.

We stood at the back.

I looked up at Marcus. “You said you had a condo.”

He looked down at me. “I do.”

“A condo penthouse?”

He grinned again and squeezed my hand.

“Lobster, limos, and penthouses. You’re somethin’, sugar,” I muttered.

“I’ll take that as good,” he replied.

I looked to the backs of the boys in front of me, stating, “Seein’ as that’s how I meant it, you go right ahead.”

At that, he let my hand go but only so he could curve his arm around my waist and curl me so my front was pressed to his side.

I looked up at him again. “This is a long ride, darlin’. Your penthouse on the moon?”

With that, he burst out laughing.

And I loved every second of it, hearing it and watching it.

Unfortunately, in the middle of it, the elevator doors opened.

We walked out into a plush little hallway that had an armchair and a table with a lamp on it over which was a mirror, all this for reasons I didn’t know since you needed a code to get to that floor so I suspected no one would be hanging there waiting for Marcus to get home.

It also had a big, gleaming wooden door that had to be a foot bigger than normal doors on every side. This had a shining brass door handle that would fit a manor house, except it was snazzier.

Marcus walked us to it, but didn’t fit a key into the door. He slid aside the door over a panel on the wall I hadn’t even noticed and entered another code.

I heard the lock unlatch.

He opened the door and positioned me to move through it with his hand at my back, saying to the boys, “Tomorrow.”

“Yes, boss,” I heard Brady say.

Ronald wasn’t a big talker, apparently, since he again said nothing.

“Later, boys,” I called, looking over my shoulder at them as Marcus pressed me in.

Brady grinned at me. Ronald just stared at me through his apparently ever-present sunglasses.

Marcus shut the door.

My gaze went to Marcus and I saw Brady had handed off my bag to him.

“Does Ronald not like me?”

He got close. “Ronald likes beer, brats, Broncos, and busty women, not in that order. He hasn’t shared, but if I had to guess, my guess would be he loves you.”

That was good but I wasn’t sure it was true.

“Brady seems friendly,” I noted. “Ronald, not so much.”

“Brady is friendly because that’s part of Brady being Brady. Ronald is old school, and as far as he’s concerned, he isn’t paid to be friendly. Especially not to any woman I’d bring dinner to or have sitting next to me in my car.”

I tipped my head to the side. “How many of those are there?”

“In my car, enough. Bringing dinner to, one.”

I smiled.

He smiled back and got closer. “I’m going to change. Then I’ll show you around. After that, I’ll start dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Make yourself at home,” he invited, lifted his hand, touched my nose, then turned and sauntered up some stairs, carrying my bag with him.

That was when I noticed the stairs.

They swept at a curve off to the side of the entry and they had an elegantly carved bannister the likes I’d never seen. All whorls and swirls, it was amazing. And the treads of the stairs were covered with a thick, opulent carpet in the color of the palest mushroom.

Beyond that, I took in floor-to-ceiling windows with an uninterrupted view of the Front Range. Uninterrupted except for the elegant drape of oyster-colored curtains pulled back at the sides.

And in the space just beyond the staircase, on gleaming parquet floors, sat a table with a massive spray of delicate butterscotch-colored flowers, the type I didn’t know, these rising up from a huge crystal vase. Two curved, elegant chairs sat at angles to the table for no reason whatsoever, except to look posh, seeing as no one would sit there unless Marcus was throwing a big party.

I hadn’t even walked in and I knew his place wasn’t class.

It was class.

He had all this.

He could come from living a life that was close to squalor and build a life where this was what he saw when he got home.

And he’d picked me.

Me.

He’d not only picked me, he’d said he’d waited thirty-five years for me.

So I stood just inside his door and I did this not feeling uncomfortable.

I felt for the only time in my life outside the time I hit the Denver city limits like I was right where I was supposed to be.

What I wasn’t going to do was make myself at home.

No, I reckoned if the entry was that fabulous, the rest was going to blow my mind.

And I wanted to experience it with Marcus.

So I didn’t leave the entry. I walked to the windows, stared out at the Front Range, and waited for him to come back.

“Honey, I told you to make yourself at home.”

I turned to see Marcus coming down the final wind to the stairs wearing another pair of nice jeans, these topped with a garnet-colored sweater with a handsome, manly shawled collar.

“I didn’t want to experience your place without you with me,” I told him.

A look passed his face right before he got in my space.

I didn’t have a chance to figure out what the look meant seeing as a nanosecond after he got in my space, I was in his arms and he was kissing me.

And that kiss was another doozy, slightly less of one than what he gave me that morning, seeing as we were standing up and we both had on more clothes (well, Marcus did, I had on a pair of faded jeans with strategically-placed worn spots (a lot of them), high-heeled, gray leather cowboy boots with turquoise ostrich feathers stitched in, and a silvery off-the-shoulder sweater that held on to my boobs by a miracle, so not more clothes, exactly, just more coverage, kind of).

The kiss was still a doozy.

When he lifted his head, I was having trouble breathing and I was holding on to his shoulders because my legs had gone weak.

“Want a tour?” he whispered.

Hell yes, I wanted a tour.

Though I’d prefer another kiss.

Horizontal again this time.

I didn’t share that.

I nodded.

He grinned.

Then he let me go, took my hand, and gave me a tour.

And we’ll just say I was right.

The entry was pure class.

The rest of it was like a dream.

* * * *

“I’m having Kelly clear my schedule so next week we can go to my place in Aspen.”

I sat at his side at his impressive dining room table where he sat at the head, a fork with linguine wrapped around its tines, Marcus’s homemade buttery, garlicky clam sauce dripping off it halfway to my mouth, and I looked to him.

There was a lot there. I didn’t know where to start.

So I started with the easiest part.

“Kelly?” I asked, then shoved the pasta into my mouth.

“My PA,” he answered, reaching to the bottle of sauvignon blanc that was in a silver bucket filled with ice on the table (yes, Marcus had a silver wine bucket, making me think that perhaps he had it all and I wasn’t talking about shit you could buy, just it all).

He refilled my wine while I asked my next.

“You have a place in Aspen?”

He put the bottle back and his eyes came to me as he replied, “Yes.”

I twirled linguine. “What else you got?”

“A beach house on Coronado. And a set of six lots that I bought in Englewood four years ago that had houses on them that were in a great neighborhood, but not in great shape. I had them razed and then had a number of trees planted so when the time came for me to build there I’d be in the city, close to work, but I’d have nature around me, peace, quiet, and privacy.”

A beach house in Coronado.

Nice.

And peace, quiet, and privacy.

That sounded real good.

“Mm-hmm,” I muttered to my linguine before I put it into my mouth.

“Does that trouble you?”

I chewed, swallowed, and answered, “Why would it trouble me?”

“You seem troubled,” he remarked.

I put my fork on my plate and gave him my full attention.

“I’m not troubled that evidence is suggesting you’re a lot more loaded than I thought you were, and I thought you were pretty loaded, sugar.” I said my next watching him carefully, which was the same way I was speaking, “I’m troubled because you wanna take me to Aspen next week when I’m gonna be back at work.”

His head tipped a bit to the side, but other than that he didn’t look ticked.

However, he did ask, “You’re going back to work?”

“Yes.”

“So soon?”

“It’s not soon, honey bunch,” I told him cautiously. “By the time I go back, I’ll have been on vacation for a month.”

That got me a scary look as his eyes went hard.

“You weren’t on vacation, Daisy.”

“I’ve been away,” I said quietly. “And I’m a draw. I’m not on that stage, they don’t need the rope outside and the only person who doesn’t hurt because of that is me, seein’ as Smithie has me on paid leave and he pays me a whack. But you know that, I’m sure.”

He inclined his head and kept his gaze on me. “I do.”

“So I need to get back to work.” I shot him a smile. “And anyway, I’m runnin’ out of Southern movies to watch. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a kickass book, but the movie sucks.”

Marcus reached for his bread, murmuring, “I’ll talk to Smithie. He can wait a week while we’re in Aspen, and when we come back, if you still want to dance, you can go back then.”

I didn’t get into the “if you still want to dance” part.

I said, “I already arranged it with Smithie, Marcus.”

He chewed his bread, swallowed, and locked his eyes on me. “I’ll rearrange it.”

Oh boy.

“Okay, sugar, just to say, that’s my job and Smithie’s my boss. I know you got a stake in that club but he’s my boss, and we got it arranged.”

“And like I’ll said, I’ll rearrange it.”

“I got a Porsche to pay for.”

“And you’re on paid leave.” He shook his head and took up his fork. “It’s too soon.”

“Honey, I need to get back to life. I had my time. I got my daisies. I did my drama. I’m not sayin’ nothin’ else is gonna spring up with all that and bite me in the ass. I’m gonna have my moments. But now, sittin’ around the house is one long moment that reminds me my life was interrupted by that asshole.”

“You won’t be thinking about that in Aspen with me.”

“True enough,” I agreed. “And I wanna do that, Marcus. I really do. I’ve never been to Aspen and I bet it’s real pretty. And it’s sweet you wanna spend time with me there. It’s just sweet you like spending time with me. But Smithie takes care of me. It’s time I take care of him right back. Maybe after a while, I can take a few days and we can go.”

“Smithie’s fine, Daisy.”

“Without me there, Smithie’s bleeding money, Marcus.”

“He isn’t.”

“Maybe you don’t get to look at the books but when I say he pays me a whack, he pays me a whack.”

His gaze steady on me, he socked it to me.

“He doesn’t. I do. I cover your salary, Daisy, and I have for the last two months.”

“Say what?” I whispered.

“I pay your salary. Smithie couldn’t afford you.”

But I was stuck on the last two months.

The last two months.

The last two months where that time ago Smithie took away a whole set, one song off the other sets and ended my lap dances but increased my pay so much, my eyeballs burned when I got a good look at the first paycheck.

And…

Two months.

Before the rape.

Before anything.

“Say what?” I repeated, not on a whisper, on a breath.

“I didn’t want you on the stage for four sets with those sets being three songs, too long alone up there and exposed. And I definitely didn’t want you doing lap dances. So to cover the loss in tips that would be, we elevated your salary, and because Smithie couldn’t pay that and it wasn’t his decision, I covered it.”

“You didn’t know me.”

“No. But I knew I wanted to.”

I stared at him.

Then I started, “Why didn’t you—?”

I cut myself off because it felt all of a sudden like something was stuck in my throat and I thought it pertinent to focus on breathing.

“Daisy?”

Marcus looked concerned.

I put a hand flat on the table and pushed through the thing choking me.

“That was two months ago.”

“Darling—”

“Before he got to me.”

Marcus went still.

I pushed up on my hand, shoved back my seat, and took my feet.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” I screeched.

He was out of his seat, too, and approaching me.

“Daisy—”

I scuttled back and lifted up a hand but he didn’t stop moving so I didn’t either as I bit out, “Don’t come near me.”

“I had things happening,” he said quietly.

“You saw me. You knew you wanted to take your shot,” I hissed. It all was coming to me, pouring over me like boiling oil. “That day. That day you were there and you left without even looking at me. You were up in Smithie’s office with Smithie. The next day Smithie gave me my raise. You saw me. You knew then.”

He kept coming at me, stalking me around the table.

“When I made my approach, Daisy, I wanted it to have my full attention.”

“If I was Marcus Sloan’s moll, no one would even think of touching me.”

“I couldn’t have known you’d be raped, baby.”

I shook my head, still retreating while he advanced and he did it speaking.

“And you’re wrong. Men like that I don’t get so I don’t get how they can do the things they do, but if he had that monstrousness in his head, it’s doubtful anyone could have stopped him, even me.”

He was making sense and I didn’t need sense.

“I need to go,” I forced out.

“It’s not my fault.”

That made me stop dead. The words and the tortured way he said them.

When I stopped, he moved in. Hands cupping the sides of my head, he held it back and bent his face to mine.

“It’s not my fault, honey. It isn’t anyone’s fault. If I could have stopped it, I would. If I could make a miracle and go back in time to erase it, I would. But I can’t. And you could have been mine then, and unless I had reason to put a man on you, which I can’t say I would do, not in the beginning, it might alarm you and I would do nothing that might alarm you, he would have found his way to get to you.”

I shook my head in his hands then nodded it.

“You’re right.”

He stared into my eyes.

“I’m…I…I’m…”

“Just take a breath,” he urged.

I did that.

Then I said it.

“I’m sorry.” I shoved my head through his hands so I could plant my face in his chest and I grabbed onto his sweater at the sides of his waist. “God, I’m so sorry.”

He wrapped his arms around me, murmuring into the top of my hair, “It’s okay.”

I let his sweater go so I could wrap my arms around him too.

Marcus held me and I held him back.

Eventually, still in my hair, he said softly, “Thinking this is one of those moments you were talking about.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, embarrassed, so I shoved my face deeper into his chest. “God, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

I tipped my head back. “That was…it was stupid. It wasn’t even logical.”

“You get a pass on being illogical. At least for another month or six or, seeing as you’re female, another seventy years.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

He grinned down at me.

His grin faded, his look grew probing, and he whispered, “Good?”

I stopped giving him the stink eye and nodded. “Yeah, honey.”

“Go to Aspen with me.”

“And the hot guy takes advantage,” I muttered.

His grin came back. “I didn’t get where I am pissing away opportunities either, Daisy.”

I rolled my eyes.

He gave me a light shake.

I rolled them back.

“Aspen,” he pushed.

“I need to take care of Smithie.”

He studied me.

Then he sighed.

It took a lot but I didn’t smile my triumph, just felt it warm me deep down inside.

But I got serious when I asked, “You pay me?”

“Yes.”

“Is that…uh, gonna continue?”

“Do you like stripping?”

“I’m fucking amazing on that stage.”

He shook his head, but did it with his lips curled up, holding me tight. “Then yes, it’ll continue as long as you want to be on that stage.”

“I rocked a private dance, sugar, but I can’t say they were my favorite things. They were just below having my eyes burned out with a red-hot fire poker, having my nails ripped out at the roots, and having a really bad hair day.”

He started chuckling.

It looked good on him but I didn’t join in.

When Marcus noticed my seriousness, he sobered and asked, “What?”

“There’s nothing I can ever—”

He let me go with one hand to put two fingers to my lips.

When I shut up, he took his fingers away and said, “Something else my sister taught me. If you can give it, you don’t blink at giving someone you care about something they need or they want. No matter how deep it cuts, how much it costs, how steep the price might be in a different way. It’s an honor and it’s a blessing. So giving you the things I can give you means I’m honored and blessed, Daisy. Please don’t take that away from me.”

I stared up at him thinking Marcus Sloan wasn’t like a dream.

He was just a dream.

And on that thought, I blurted, “Miss Annamae would love you.”

Again, something new moved over his face and I held my breath at its splendor.

“Consider me paid back,” he whispered.

Lord.

He.

Was.

Killing.

Me!

“Oh my God!” I snapped. “You’re gonna make me cry again.”

“Cry in your linguine, darling, it’s getting cold,” he returned, pulling me to his side and guiding me back to my chair.

I sat.

He sat.

Then I groused, “Who woulda thought some asshole cheatin’ on me or beatin’ on me would be easier to take than some hot guy honored and blessed to spoil me rotten.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Marcus murmured to his linguine.

I stared at his dark head bent over his plate right along with feeling my heart contract.

He lifted that head, swallowed, and asked, “What?”

“I don’t know whether to throw something at you or jump you.”

He grinned a wicked grin that set my coochie to buzzing.

“We’re taking it slow, remember?”

“Yeah. Right. Great.”

He kept grinning and the buzzing got stronger.

“Stop turning me on,” I warned.

“Stop being cute,” he fired back.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

He watched it then looked in my eyes. “That didn’t work.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, grabbed my bread, and gnawed off a huge chunk with my teeth.

Marcus burst out laughing.

And I loved the sound.

Whatever!

* * * *

Marcus ripped his mouth from mine, rested his forehead against mine, and murmured a labored, “Christ.”

I stood pressed against the doorjamb of his bedroom, my chest heaving, brushing against his, this setting my nipples to tingling (or setting them to tingling more). My fingers were also gripping the back of his sweater in a way that I was sure would misshape it forever.

It was a great sweater. This would be a shame.

I just couldn’t find it in me at that minute to care.

It was time to go to bed.

And Marcus led me to his bedroom, where I was sleeping (and he would hear none of it that I could take a guest room (he didn’t have one like he’d said, he had three) so I shut up about it) and he’d just given me a goodnight kiss that led to another one that led to another one that led to a make-out session in his doorway.

He had one hand curled around the back of my neck, the other hand braced on the jamb over my head.

His hold and pose were hot.

So I was not feeling slow.

At all.

“I think maybe we can—” I began.

He lifted his forehead from mine and cut me off.

“We need to work up to it.”

“I’m up for more working up to it,” I shared with him breathily.

He took his hand from the jamb and brushed his fingers along my jaw.

“Don’t make this harder,” he ordered gently.

I wanted to make something harder.

To communicate this, I replied, “I know ways to make it a whole lot easier.”

“Daisy, honey, you lost it at dinner.”

Damn.

“We need to work up to it,” he repeated.

He was right.

And that stunk.

“All right,” I grumbled.

“All right,” he replied sweetly.

“Can we make a deal that if I have forty-eight hours drama-free, you’ll consider banging me?”

He smiled down at me. “Honey, I’m never going to bang you. What we’re going to do will not include banging.”

I didn’t know what to make of that.

“What’re we gonna do?” I asked, not to get a rise out him (in that way, or any way).

I was curious.

“We’re not going to bang.”

“Okay, so what’re we gonna do?”

“You bang someone you give a gold bracelet to to say good-bye when you’ve lost interest in banging her. The man I am does not bang a woman like you.”

Oh Lord.

His brows drew together as he watched my face. “Are you going to cry again?”

“No,” I snapped, though I was feeling close to it. So I needed a retreat, stat. “Go away. I need to crawl into your huge-ass bed, smell you on your sheets, and fight the desire to ask you to let it be me who puts a bullet into that jackass’s forehead.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

I blinked at the sudden change in the tone of his voice.

It wasn’t just firm.

It was steel grating against steel.

“I was just joshin’,” I told him carefully.

“Well, I’m not. I do what I do. I have other concerns that I’m growing alongside those you don’t know about, you’ll never know about, but know they’re there. I do this to assure the future I intend to have. That’s the part of my life where you’ll have your place. The only part. This gets done, you live in that light. I never put you in any dark.”

“Okay, sugar,” I soothed, because I needed to soothe. The sparks flying off his steel were singeing me.

The heat went out of his gaze, he bent and touched his mouth to mine, and then he gave my neck a squeeze.

He did all this right before he didn’t play fair.

“Now, go to bed, baby. And if you do something while you’re wrapped up in my sheets that I’d love, but right now knowing you were doing it would kill me, please be quiet. I intend to be.”

My eyes got huge.

His got wicked.

Then he brushed his lips against mine again, took his time trailing his hand from my neck so his fingers went all the way through my hair before he stepped away and walked away, not looking back.

Still, I watched until he disappeared through a door down the hall.

Okay, giving you the honesty.

I watched his ass until it disappeared through a door down the hall.

But there was some shoulder watching too.

I closed the door to his room, got ready for bed, and for the first time since what happened to me happened to me, I took care of business wrapped up in Marcus’s sheets.

And really, who could blame me?

Not to mention, he’d totally primed me so it was awesome.

And not once did I think about what had happened to me.

Oh no.

After I took care of myself as quiet as I could, I rolled over, smelled Marcus, closed my eyes with a smile on my face, and slept like a baby.