Chapter Thirteen – Marcella

I stand in front of the most attractive man I've ever met, trying to hold everything I'm feeling back when all I want to do is scream until my throat can no longer voice my frustration. Since I met Nixon, my emotions have gotten the better of me. I just don't get this guy. He's hot and cold. He's passion and indifference. Light and shade. I never read that fifty shades book, but this dude's at least a thousand hues of that dull, lifeless color. Probably more like a million. I'm off kilter because I can't control any situation I'm in that includes him, and I don't like it which makes me not like the guy who's causing it. Dante Giovanetti is a piece of shit, and my intuition is telling me that there's no reason for him to be at the Armónico unless they're in cahoots with each other.

It's now my job to protect Lincoln, even if that protection is from his own brother. The sweet, little munchkin already owns a part of my heart. I don't think I've ever met a kinder child in my entire life.

"I'm glad to hear it." He says the words, but he's not looking at me. Instead, he's shuffling papers around on his desk like he wants nothing more than to have me out of his sight, and I'm not taking the hint. It rankles, and I find my ire rising like lava from a volcano that's been silent too long. I try to tamp it down, but my heart throbs and my fingers twitch with the need to do something. I'm not sure what it is about Nixon Caldwell that gets me so wound up. He finally glances up, an eyebrow raised. "Is that all?"

That's it. This new dismissive tone of his wafts over me, and red colors my vision. A vibrant, vivid shade of crimson that represents all the anger I've ever felt in my life, and it's directed at him.

"You're a damn liar."

I start to shake and will myself to stop, but my body has a mind of its own. I delight in the look of shock that crosses his mask of cool disdain. There's nothing I'd like more than to lean over his chrome desk and mess up his perfect spiky hair. There's not a fucking hair out of place, and it pisses me off. I want to take everything that's perfect in his life and fuck with it.

In a fit of anger, and something else I'm not ready to examine, I take the stack of papers he's shuffling and sweep them off his desk. As they flutter to the plush carpet, I stare at them floating ever downward. I hope they were important and are now out of order because of me. Nixon just sits there like some human mannequin. Not speaking. Not looking. Not fucking nothing. How dare he not start yelling and screaming before ordering me out of his office. Fire my impudent ass. Anything.

His silence and stillness heighten my already rising emotions. I walk around his desk and hover so close I can feel scorching heat emanating from his body, feel it sinking into mine. I raise my fingers to grab his fancy pen, and his hand snakes out and encases mine in an iron grip. I feel the barely contained emotion simmering just beneath his polished exterior. He's like a black panther, crouched and waiting to strike a death blow. I close my eyes and wait for him to hit me.

But he doesn't.

For electric moments, we remain still, locked within the vice-like grasp of some roller coaster of emotions that neither one of us acknowledge. I blink, and as soon as my eyes close, the searing heat of his mouth captures mine, his tongue sliding between my parted lips. I fall forward into his lap and can feel the steel of his throbbing erection pushing against my hip. He's huge, and it scares the shit out of me, but the fear flies away in the face of my rising lust. All I want is to get rid of this racing emotion I feel whenever I'm around him, so I kiss him back with all the pain and hope inside of me.

He tastes like strength and passion, and I find myself leaning into him, relishing the depth of lust he's feeding me, lapping it up before giving back some of my own. Outside of a few hurried pecks from past boyfriends, I've never been kissed. Not like this. I push back, wanting more, deepening the connection, but he stays urgent and controlling. He's taking what he wants again, and this time, I let him. I'm hypnotized with the taste, feel, and heat of Nixon Caldwell. Having never felt something this intense, I want to take it all and drink it in. It's like someone flipped a switch, and my body's come alive for the first time as an adult woman.

I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing even closer to him. My t-shirt is flush to his cotton dress shirt, but that's not close enough. I want to feel his skin. He moves his hand from my thigh to my hips, and in one tug, I'm straddling him. But he doesn't break the connection with his lips, just keeps devouring my mouth. His hands roam my body as he takes and takes and takes. I start to rock against him, and it causes a guttural sound to rip from the depths of his body, like a lion roaring to his pride.

His grip on me grows firmer as tension rises inside him. He wants something, but I don't know what it is. I can't bring myself to even try to figure it out with all the wonderful new sensations cascading through me. As I grind my hot, wet sex into his crotch, the entire world fades into oblivion. The only thing left is blinding emotion. There's a precipice, and I'm racing toward it. What would happen if I let myself fall?

"More," I plead, pulling away from his mouth for a moment before latching back on to his lips. My hands go to his hair, wanting to hold on to him until I never have to let go. I spread my legs wider, grinding harder, as his hot mouth moves down between my breasts, nuzzling them through my bra and t-shirt. My skin feels like it's being licked by a raging inferno.

"I'm so hot," I say on a moan. "Too hot. Please..."

I'm not even sure what I'm begging for. His hands push at my shirt, pulling it down to expose my lacy pink bra. When he moves his fingers to the edging, I feel like I'm going to jump right out of my fevered skin. His deft fingers dip inside, and I finally feel the intimacy of his caress on my naked flesh. It's heaven. My head falls back, and I hear a tortured moan that must be my own because his mouth has moved to the tender skin of my neck, branding me.

He kisses down my neck, unphased by my pleas for something I can't articulate. Nixon's fingers move the cup of my bra out of the way, and the cooler air kisses my skin. After tasting my exposed nipple, he blows on it.

"Is that better?" he asks, and all I can manage is another groan of pleasure. His teeth graze me there, and the throbbing between my legs increases. I push down on his core again, trying to calm my urges. I feel wild and feral, and I want to beg him to claim me even though I have no idea what that feels like.

My heart throbs against my chest with such a powerful rhythm it borders on discomfort. I squirm on top of Nixon, seeking an end to the physical torment he's caused since the first day I saw him. Every nerve ending in my body awakens and fires with fierce intensity. His hand moves down my rib cage and lands on my thigh. My core contracts in response. God, I want him to touch me so bad. Just when I think he's never going to move it, he does.

Releasing my swollen nipple, Nixon leans in closer. His breath against my ear sends a little shiver down my spine.

"I want to feel how wet you are," he whispers.

"Yes," I say, the word sounding more like a strangled moan. His hand hovers over my heated slit, but before he can touch me, a thought pierces through the fog of lust. "Truth or dare."

The question stops him in his tracks as his body stills. When his eyes meet mine, I delight in the fact that his are just as cloudy as mine must be. "Truth. I never, ever take a dare."

"How do you know Dante Giovanetti?" I ask, wanting, no needing to know the answer before anything progresses between us. I need confirmation that Nixon isn't a bad man.

"He killed my father."

I rear back, gasping in shock. I'd heard that Nixon's dad died by suicide. Not murder. He sees the flabbergasted looked on my face and runs his palms along my jawline.

"I don't want to talk about it right now." I hope I haven't blown the mood with my loaded question. "Now it's your turn, little one," he says, returning his lips and hands to my body. "Truth or dare."

I don't hesitate. "Truth."

"An excellent choice," he says, his eyes fixated on my bare breasts. "Pink."

"What?" I have no idea where he's going with that admission.

"Your nipples. I'll admit to fantasizing about the color prior to this moment. Only because I'm committed to the truth, too."

He circles each of them with his index fingers, and I think I might lose it. He tugs on the button to my jeans and slips his right hand inside my waistband. I moan and grip his shoulders so tightly my knuckles whiten. When his palm dips lower, and his fingers reach the edge of my lacy thong, I know I must come clean, regardless of our word games.

"So, truth. I've never…never…you know."

In the end, I'm too scared to tell him I've never had an orgasm, never even had sex. Nixon's almost thirty, and he's experienced. My face flames red under the humiliation of my ignorance and naiveté, and I feel the heated flush creep up from the back of my neck.

God, I'll never survive this.

The chemistry between us is so crazy, so damn electric, that I wanted to see it through, but I think I've made a fatal error in judgment.

I just can't.

His finger dips inside my panties, and I throw my head back and lean in. Anything I'd ever felt in the presence of a man before this moment was a nonsensical farce based on fake emotions. This is real. For the first time in my life, I understand it all. Nixon starts a back and forth motion with his thumb over my engorged clit until I'm on the verge of something big and powerful. All I have to do is reach out and grab it.

"You've never what?" he asks, stopping the motion, and piercing me with that blue gaze again. It feels like he knows everything, even the words that fall between us unspoken.

I clamp my eyes shut against the intimate onslaught, with a prayer that when I utter this one word, he won't reject me because of it.

"Come."

He doesn't respond but stands up, taking me along with him. Right when I think he's going to deposit me into the hallway, he doesn't. He turns me around so that my back is snug against his front and sinks back down into his cushy chair. My legs dangle on either side of his, and I've never felt so exposed. The strip is behind us in all its decadent glory. I wonder if anyone on the street can see our outline and knows what we're doing.

"I'm going to make that truth nothing but a distant memory."

His words excite me in a way I can't really describe. I lean back into him, allowing him full access to my body, trusting him like I've never done with a man before in complete and utter surrender. Wrapping his left hand around my waist, his right one dips in between my legs again. I reach behind my head, gripping his neck to keep him in place while I rock against his hand, my ass grinding down on his erection. I clamp down on his body and his hand as my release builds and finally erupts, bringing waves of exquisite sensation kaleidoscoping across my limbs.

The realization of what just happened settles in bone deep as I drift back to earth. I snuggle backward into his neck, and his hands move to my stomach, caressing my skin. I stiffen when his fingers trace over my scar. I don't want him to see my deformity, so I'm grateful that my back is facing him.

"Marcella." He sounds angry now, and I shiver, not understanding what I might have done wrong. "What is this?"

Before I can answer, he lifts me and flips me around as if I weigh nothing. Once I'm facing him, I watch his face. All traces of softness have left the man, and nothing remains but hard planes and angles of chiseled rage.

Never taking his eyes off mine, he lifts my shirt again and thumbs the brand that represents an ownership I'm only beginning to understand.

"What the fuck is this?"